Power of Persuasion
by Laura Picken
Summary: Someone has been guiding and supporting Agent Phil Coulson since the day of his resurrection. But when Coulson turns to this source of support to save Skye, he learns more about Skye (and himself) than he ever could have imagined. In my "Four Winds" alternate universe ("Castle"). Sequel (in spirit) to my Castle/Avengers X-over "North Star".
1. Chapter 1

This is a message to the lovely htbuzz: thank you. Your messages seems to get to me exactly when I need them most. It is because of you that I'm diving back in the pool again...

I believe that there are two types of fan fiction. First, there is "what if" fan fiction, where the author throws out a question and builds their story around it. Like, "What if Castle were a wizard?" for example.

The second type of fan fiction is corrective fan fiction. Corrective fan fiction is where the author fills in a missing scene or give a show something it's lacking. And there is one show out there right now where the thing that most fans seem to think it lacks is super powers. Good thing I have plenty of them lying around...

This is a crossover between "Castle" and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.". Since that's the obvious part of this equation, let's get to the not-so-obvious part: this is set in the weird and wonderful twilight zone that is my Castle very alternate universe of the Guardians of Shangri La, which started in my story "Four Winds". It is the spiritual successor to my Guardians/Avengers crossover "North Star", although you won't need to have read that story to enjoy this one.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything but the concept for the Guardians. If you think I own Castle or Marvel Comics you obviously haven't seen my house. The Castle characters will not show up in this preface...but they will show up in the next chapter. For Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans, this is an AU branch off from the very beginning of the excellent episode "T.A.H.I.T.I.". Although, I'm hoping you'll catch on to that from the preface. ;-) I've quoted some lines from the beginning of that episode, as well as from parts of "The Magical Place", but not too many, I hope...

Comments and questions are highly encouraged! And on with the show...

#

"He's drifting..."

Agent Phil Coulson had been 'drifting' for what seemed like an eternity. It was the only way he had to escape the pain.

"This is wrong," Dr. Streiten declared, with a firm angry insistence that spoke of his emotional conviction on the subject.

Another spike of pain tore across Coulson's temple. "Can you feel that?" he heard the nurse ask him.

"No," Coulson exclaimed, his voice breaking with pain. He tried to move his arms, his neck...anything that would let him get away. The effort was futile. All he could do was plead. Plead to the one man who seemed to be sympathetic to his plight. "Please," he begged the doctor. "Please...please just let me die..."

_The time for that has passed,_ a voice echoed in Coulson's head.

_I must be 'drifting' again,_ Phil thought, confused by the unfamiliar voice that rang through his mind.

A deep rumbling purr of a large cat seemed to echo around the room, although no one but Coulson seemed to hear it. _The mortal world seems to be...unwilling to release you, great warrior. They have gone to great lengths to keep you among the living._

_I don't want to..._Coulson insisted.

_I know,_ the voice agreed. _But your...situation can no longer be changed. You will remain among the living for now. I am here to bring you comfort in this trial._

_Who are you?_ asked Phil.

Another deep rumbling purr answered his question, but the waves of the sound seemed to run *through* Coulson, killing the pain as they went. He felt warm, safe and at peace for the first time since he had awakened from his resurrection. _Who *are* you?_ he asked the voice a second time.

The edges of Coulson's vision turned blurry, then orange. The orange circle shrank into a single point of light, which then grew and shifted until the face of a bengal tiger filled his view. He felt a warm presence cuddle up against his side, along with the soft rubbing of fur against his skin. _I am a servant to those who protect the innocent,_ the tiger declared. _I am here for you as you are here for others. Whatever you need, I swear it will be given you..._

#

Skye was dying.  
A member of his team was dying a slow and painful death, and there was nothing that Coulson could do to stop it.

Agent Coulson paced fitfully outside the chamber that was keeping his troublesome young protègé alive...barely. There had to be some way to save her. But how?

Simmons matched his pacing step for nervous step. "Sir," she stammered nervously, "I...I don't know what you think I can do for her that they haven't already tried at the hub..."

_You know who can help her,_ a familiar deep voice purred inside Coulson's mind.

Coulson had to fight to keep his expression neutral, lest his subordinate know that an invisible bengal tiger had wrapped itself around his legs and joined in the conversation. _You're here, _he thought, hoping that the tiger could hear his thoughts as it always seemed to in his dreams. _Please_...Even Coulson's mind-voice was laced with obvious worry and panic as he locked his gaze on Skye. _Please, if there's any way you can help her..._

_I cannot_, the voice replied calmly. _But I do know someone who can. As do you._

Coulson swallowed hard as his few fragmented memories of his resurrection came rushing to the front of his mind. _Them? Do we have to go...there..._

The tiger vanished from Coulson's side and reappeared in the life support unit, jumping up so that his two front paws were propped up on the bed and he stood on his hind legs. _I would never allow you to submit another to those horrors,_ the tiger declared. _No, I am thinking of another._

Coulson had to resist the urge to pound his fist against the glass. _Who?!_ he demanded.

_The one who helped the Black Widow_, the tiger calmly replied.

A fresh new set of memories rushed to the front of Coulson's mind, and he instantly knew exactly where they needed to go. _How will I find them?_

The image that came to Coulson's mind, he knew, sprang from a thought that was not his own. _Find this warrior,_ the tiger told Coulson. _He will lead you to them._

A violent pounding noise caught his attention. Coulson looked away from Skye and toward the ceiling. Judging from the location of the sound, Coulson knew it could only be one thing. And as important as saving Skye was, Coulson knew that Quinn's life was almost as important...if only to stop the clairvoyant from coming after all of them even harder. "May..." he growled, sounding oddly like the tiger whose voice had been rumbling in his mind.

Quinn's face was already covered in blood by the time Coulson and Ward arrived at the holding cell. "May! May!" he called out, immediately getting his friend's attention. "Outside, now."

Coulson followed an enraged Melinda May into his office at the front of the plane. "He deserves to die, not her," she declared angrily.

"Agreed," Coulson chimed in. "But right now, Quinn doesn't matter - only Skye does, and I need you to pilot the plane."

May stared at Coulson in stunned disbelief. "You heard what the doctor said..."

"She said there was nothing more they could do for her," Coulson argued, "but I know someone who can. Someone who's helped people that have gone through far worse than Skye to make a full recovery."

May shook his head, confused at how Coulson could know of such a person but she didn't. "Where is this person, then?"

"I don't know," Coulson replied matter-of-factly. "But I know who can take us to them. Set a course for Brooklyn. We need to find Steve Rogers."

#

_**Comments welcome! **_


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes he hated dating a wizard.

There was so much about Alexis that Steve loved. Her brilliant mind. Her compassionate spirit. Her quirky and innocent sense of humor.

Of course, sometimes her sense of humor was the problem...

Every once in a while, Alexis liked to 'test' him. She would give him a general location to meet up, then leave a trail of 'breadcrumbs' for him to follow until he discovered where she was really hiding. An 'odd sock' item, out of place in the environment. A strange sound. A familiar smell, wafting in on the breeze. All these clues would eventually lead him to his beloved.

Who, today, was sitting in a rowboat anchored in the middle of Prospect Park Lake. He sighed, smiling even as his exasperation showed in his voice. "Alexis!"

Alexis chuckled as she turned to the direction that she knew her boyfriend would be coming from. "Hi Steve!" she yelled back.

"Are we going to talk like this all day?" he called out to her, knowing the answer even as he asked the question.

"You could come out here and join me!" Alexis countered.

Steve rolled his eyes. Alexis *knew* that she had anchored the boat just far enough away that he could jump into the boat if he wanted to. But that would mean jumping into the boat...and potentially revealing to anyone watching that he was the 'mysterious' Captain America. _No_, he thought, _there has to be some other way for me to get out there..._

A flash of metal glinting against the late morning sun caught his attention. _There...Alexis, you little sneak..._ A second rowboat was moored by the shore twenty feet away from his location, surrounded by tall rushes and covered in enough leaves and stray tree branches that it would have been nearly impossible for anyone else to find.

Steve cleared the branches from the boat and rowed it out to meet his girlfriend, who first tied the two boats together, then pressed a cold beer into the hands of her boyfriend before climbing into the leaf-covered rowboat. "Did you *really* think I was going to jump?" asked Steve.

"No," Alexis teased, shaking her head. "But I knew you would be *tempted* to jump..."

Steve rolled his eyes before finally kissing Alexis in greeting. "Good morning," he purred with a smile.

"Good morning," Alexis purred back before silencing her boyfriend as she returned and deepened the kiss.

"Good morning, Captain!"

It wasn't the 'Captain' that caught Steve's attention. It was the familiar ring of the voice that *called* him Captain. A voice that, he thought, he would never hear again. He stood up in the boat, scanning the area for the source of the greeting. Fog started to slowly roll across the surface of the lake, causing Steve to worry further. "Alexis," he quietly warned, "it's SHIELD. Watch it."

"I could get us out of here," Alexis offered in a quiet whisper.

"No!" Steve insisted, his voice barely coming above a whisper itself. "This fog is bad enough. I won't put you at risk."

"Captain," the voice called out again, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. Innocent lives are depending on this. Can we talk? Somewhere more...private?"

Alexis and Steve looked to each other in a moment of unspoken communication and sighed in defeat, knowing that neither of them could live with themselves if they left now. Not if innocent lives were at stake. Alexis called up a gentle breeze to push them in the direction of the voice, then untied the connected boats so Steve could 'row' them back to shore.

When they arrived, Steve offered a hand to Alexis to 'steady' her as she got out of the boat, then turned to face an asian woman he didn't recognize...and a middle-aged gentleman he did recognize. "Agent Phil Coulson," Steve greeted the 'older' man warily. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"I was," Coulson replied matter-of-factly.

When Coulson didn't volunteer further information on the subject, Steve pushed further. "Are you still with SHIELD?" he asked.

Coulson nodded. "This is Agent Melinda May, a member of my team."

Steve nodded in acknowledgement of the asian woman's introduction but made no move to greet her formally. "What is this about, *Agent* Coulson?" May's gaze fell on the redhead at Coulson's side. It was a move that Steve recognized instantly. "This is Alexis, my girlfriend," he told Agent May. "Anything you can say in front of me, you can say in front of her."

May opened her mouth to protest discussing SHIELD business in front of a civilian, but was silenced by her boss. "It's all right," Coulson reassured May. "I believe this may involve Alexis' father...?"

While the comment may have placated May, it sent Steve and Alexis on high alert. Both the superhero and his girlfriend tensed up immediately. "What would an agency like SHIELD want with a 'celebrity' writer?" Alexis asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.

"Nothing," Coulson replied. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, hoping that his intel was correct. In the most formal language he could think of, Coulson got down on one knee before he announced his intentions. "I am humbly requesting the assistance of the honored Guardians of Shangri La."

May shook her head, blinking back her disbelief as she tried and failed to not stare at her boss. _What is he *doing*? Who is he talking about?_ she thought.

Steve and Alexis tensed up even further. "Why do you think I would know how to contact the Guardians?" asked Steve.

"I know you and the Avengers helped the Guardians fight that dragon attack a while back," Coulson replied. "And since you are, evidently, dating the Sifāng's daughter..."

Steve and Alexis sighed in defeat, knowing that Coulson's information was accurate. "What do you want from them?" asked Steve.

"A member of my team is dying," said Coulson. "The doctors have said there's nothing more they can do for her. I was hoping that the Yīzhì might be able to help. SHIELD doesn't know I'm here. I'm only asking because..."

Alexis' attention trailed off as a familiar bengal tiger bowed at her feet. _Honored Sifāng-Nú'ér,_ the tiger's mind-voice greeted Alexis, _it is good to see you again._

While Alexis couldn't help but stare at the cat at her feet, she had to stop herself from dropping down to get closer to the spirit animal. _What are you doing here?_

_I am here to...vouch for the warrior Coulson,_ the tiger replied. _He is good and trustworthy._

_So you want us to help him? _asked Alexis. The tiger nodded. _What about Agent May?_

_As trustworthy as the agency she works for_, the tiger replied.

Having gotten an earful and a half about how much SHIELD could be trusted, Alexis knew exactly how they should proceed. _Got it. Thanks_. Out of the corner of her eye, Alexis noticed that the group's attention had completely focused on her...so she took the opportunity to take control of the discussion. "Do you know how to get to City Island?" she asked Coulson, her attention entirely focused on him.

"I...do?" asked Coulson, confused by the direct question.

"Then go to the abandoned lot at the end of Marine Street and wait for further instructions," Alexis replied. "Go *alone* or the Guardians will do nothing to help your friend. And if you know as much as you claim to know, then you know that they will know if you are truly alone. Is that clear?"

Coulson nodded, thrilled to see some hope for Skye for the first time since her shooting. Steve, though, was growing more confused by the minute. "Lex?"

"A...mutual friend just vouched for Agent Coulson here," Alexis replied.

Coulson looked like he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him. There was only one being that could have 'vouched' for him in so short a time. "You saw...?" he asked, not wanting to admit to his 'imaginary' ally in front of his fellow SHIELD agent.

Alexis nodded. "How soon can you get to City Island?"

"Within the hour," Coulson replied.

"Then my father and his team will meet you there...*if* you follow my instructions."

Coulson nodded, understanding the implicit threat in Alexis' last words. "Thank you, Ms. Castle. That's all I can ask."

May finally found her voice again after the two teams separated from each other. "What the hell happened back there, Coulson?" asked May, her nerves fraying from feeling so out of the loop. "What did you just agree to?"

"Saving Skye," Coulson replied matter-of-factly. He climbed into the classic car he affectionately called 'Lola', not letting May get into her earlier passenger side seat. "Go back to the bus," he instructed May. "I'll be back soon."

May had to resist the urge to punch the nearest tree as she watched 'Lola' fly northward to Coulson's meeting. She found great comfort in being the one who held all the cards. She *needed* to be the one who was in control, and feeling so out of control...nothing frustrated her more. She opened a channel on her communicator. "Ward?" she demanded, a little more forcefully than necessary, "I need you to find me everything you can on some group called the Guardians of Shangri La..."

#

Steve was having trouble keeping his jaw clenched. His emotions were flipping between shock, anger and confusion so quickly that he was rapidly developing a headache as a result. "What the hell was that?!" Steve pushed Alexis, his tone demanding an immediate answer. "I was just about to turn them down! Who vouched for Coulson? Ryan?"

Alexis shook her head. "Your 'friend' Agent Coulson has somehow gotten the attention of the tiger spirit. *He* vouched for him."

Those were probably the last words that Steve expected to hear. "*The* tiger spirit? The one that creates the army?" Alexis nodded, causing Steve's emotions to turn and settle on a dime. "Wow," he exclaimed, amazed by the news. "So what now?"

"Now we go to the warehouse and try to convince the Guardians to drop everything and try to help a rogue SHIELD agent," Alexis replied...

before they disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

The noonday sun beat down on the concrete slab where Coulson paced, waiting for the group with whom he was meeting. He only hoped that the Guardians would show up, as promised.

_The Sìfāng-Núèr is a woman of her word,_ the tiger-spirit's voice reassured him. _The honored ones will be here._

"I hope you're right," he told the tiger, squinting up at the sun and praying to any and all gods and Asgardians who might be listening. "I hope you're right...hey, can I ask you a question?"

_Ask away,_ the tiger replied.

_I can't believe I'm asking a question to a hallucination, _Coulson thought. Out loud, though, he asked, "how could Alexis Castle see you?"

_All will be revealed in time, W__arrior Coulson,_ the tiger replied.

Coulson chuckled and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose to clear the brightness and tension away from behind his eyes. "Cryptic," he muttered, "I probably shouldn't be surprised that you're being cryptic..."

"Who's being cryptic?"

The woman's resonant voice was not the one that Coulson was expecting. Still, the pale face framed by dark hair matched one of the photographs he had seen in the very sparse file. "Agent Beckett, I presume?"

Kate Beckett nodded. "Agent Coulson?" Coulson nodded. "Are you alone?"

Coulson knew better than to lie to the woman in front of him. "To the best of my knowle..."

"He's alone."

A second voice called across to him from the opposite direction. Two men approached Coulson, matching each other stride for stride. "You're sure?" asked Beckett.

Ryan nodded. "I've checked a half-mile on land and as far in the air as I could get. No one in the area is paying any attention to us unless they're looking with a satellite..."

"Which they won't be."

A third man came up to stand at Beckett's side. "Agent Castle?" asked Coulson.

Castle nodded. "This area is protected. No one from SHIELD or anywhere else will be able to detect anyone in this area until we're done here."

Coulson nodded, anticipating and expecting the protective measures. His attention was drawn to the fourth member of the group - the only one who hadn't spoken to him. In fact, the fourth member of the group was the only one who hadn't yet looked him in the eye. On the contrary, the one he suspected to be Agent Javier Esposito seemed to be completely focused on Coulson's knees...

Or rather, the spirit animal who was sitting at attention next to Coulson's knees. "Whoa," Esposito exclaimed, his expression showing his complete amazement at what he was seeing. "Alexis was right..."

Coulson's eyes went wide. "You can see him, too?"

Esposito ignored him, getting down on one knee to look the spirit animal in the eye. "Raja, what are you doing here?"

_I have always supported honorable warriors in need,_ Raja explained. _The warrior Coulson is honorable and right now is in great need._

"Because of his injured friend?"

_Among many things, yes,_ Raja replied.

Coulson, for his part, seemed stuck on the fact that his 'hallucination' was, apparently, visible to yet another person. "You can *see* him?" he asked Esposito a second time.

"We all can," Ryan replied for his fellow Guardian.

Coulson staggered back, a bit stunned by Ryan's explanation. "How...why..."

Ryan could only shrug. "This is the first time we've ever met someone who's been adopted by the tiger. It's kind of a surprise to us, too."

"Who *is* he?" asked Coulson in amazement.

"First things first," Esposito declared, standing up as the tiger spirit disappeared. "You seemed pretty desperate to help your friend when you talked to Alexis earlier."

Coulson nodded. His mind referencing what little he had found in the file, he offered a hand to Esposito. "I could explain the situation to you, but from what I understand, it'll be faster if you see for yourself?"

Esposito nodded, clasping Coulson's hand into his own to shake it...then both men collapsed to their knees as the confusing mix of memories momentarily overwhelmed Esposito.

Ryan raced to his friend's side, opening a connection to Esposito's mind to give him the strength and focus to complete the process of organizing Coulson's memories...but only barely. "Whoa," Esposito exclaimed between gulping down large breaths of air. "You've been through some twisted kind of hell, man..."

"So they tell me," Coulson added.

Ryan stared at Coulson in disbelief. "You can't remember?"

"Bits and pieces..." replied Coulson with a shrug.

"That's what gave me so much trouble," Esposito chimed in. "Some sick, twisted SOB superimposed a second set of memories over your own. I'm still having trouble telling the difference between your real experiences and how they messed with your head. I'm surprised you haven't gone nuts, to be honest."

Coulson chuckled bitterly. "Gee, thanks."

"You're sure that SHIELD is who did this to you?" asked Esposito.

"99 percent," Coulson replied.

Castle let out a low whistle. "Jesus..." he exclaimed, "no wonder Steve's so wary to let us get involved with SHIELD."

"He's not wrong," Coulson agreed. He then turned his attention back to Esposito. "You saw what happened to Skye?" Esposito nodded. "So you know how bad her situation is?"

Esposito nodded. "So does the Yīzhì," he told Coulson. "She's ready to leave for the bus when we give her the go."

Coulson nodded gratefully. "Thank you."

Castle, for his part, was not quite so ready. "Are you guys sure about this?" he asked.

Ryan and Esposito both nodded. _Skye's on full life support,_ Ryan told the Guardians through their group mind-link, _and according to Lanie, Skye will never come out of it if she doesn't intervene. Her body's far too damaged_.

_So we get in, let Lanie heal this Skye woman, and get out?_ asked Castle.

_Coulson's not going to let anything happen to us if he can help it,_ Esposito insisted. _And I'd really like to figure out why Raja's taken this guy under his wing..._

Castle couldn't resist. _So to speak,_ he teased.

Esposito ignored him. _But you're probably right. Getting on and off the bus as quickly as possible is probably the best course of action._

"Then let's go, then," announced Castle.

Coulson tried to ignore the feeling that he had missed something. "All right, then," he agreed. "My car's just over here..."

Castle stopped Coulson with a hand on the man's shoulder and an enigmatic smile. "That's now how we travel," insisted Castle. "We'll come back for your car."

"Really?" asked Coulson, frowning. "Then how..."

Coulson's question was cut off when the group disappeared.

#

The group reappeared in the plane's loading bay. It only took Coulson a second to realize that they had crossed several boroughs and launched tens of thousands of feet into the air in the blink of an eye. "Yeah, that definitely beats flying," he agreed in amazement. Out of the corner of his eye, Coulson then realized that a fifth member of the Guardians had joined the group. "Phil Coulson," he introduced himself.

"Dr. Lanie Parrish-Esposito," Lanie greeted Coulson back as she shook his hand. "Can you point me in the direction of my patient?" Coulson nodded in agreement, then turned toward the labs...

Where Ward and Fitz were pointing guns at the group while Simmons cowered nervously behind them. "Identify yourselves," Ward insisted forcefully, ignoring the fact that his boss was standing right in front of him. "How did you get on this plane?"

Ryan had to resist the urge to chuckle. "Give me those things before you hurt yourselves with them," he casually told the two agents as he walked past them.

The weapons floated out of Ward and Fitz' hands and flew across the loading bay before the two agents had a chance to do anything about it. Coulson, for his part, fell in lock step with the Guardians. "Gentlemen," he ordered his team with a smile, "stop pointing weapons at our guests. And Simmons, please join us. I have a feeling you're gonna want to see this."

The group crossed quickly through the lab until they stopped in front of the life support containment unit that was holding Skye. The sight was horribly familiar to Esposito. "That's her?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Coulson nodded, then turned to the head of his technical team. "Simmons, open the door."

Simmons went wide-eyed. "Sir," she argued, "that unit is hermetically sealed to keep Skye in..."

Coulson's tone broached no argument. "Open. It. That's an order."

Simmons opened her mouth to argue, then closed it when she realized that Coulson was not going to allow her to argue. "Yes, sir," she finally relented, punching in the code to open the door.

The door slid open with a near-silent whooshing sound. Lanie pushed through the crowd of people, approaching her patient with a quiet reverence for the scene in front of her. "Hello, Skye," she whispered. "I'm Lanie. I'm here to help."

Lanie took Skye's hand in her own, slipping easily into a healing trance when their hand made contact. She closed her eyes so she could focus on taking care of her patient, then frowned moments later. Ryan noticed the change in Lanie's expression and opened a connection between them. _Lanie? _he asked. _Everything ok?_

_Something's...odd,_ Lanie replied. _Help me finish up._

_Sure_, agreed Ryan.

Lanie and Ryan squeezed Skye's hands for a few more tense, quiet moments before Lanie came out of her trance. Skye soon followed, yawning and stretching her arms up over her head like she had just awakened from a restful night's sleep. it was only when her eyes adjusted to the light that Skye realized how many people where surrounding her...and where she was. "Guys, why am I waking up in the infirmary? What..." Skye's voice trailed off as her last memories returned to her. "Did I," she gasped, "did I get shot?"

Coulson was the first one to find his voice. "Yeah," he replied, choking back a small sob, "but you're going to be just fine."

Lanie, for her part, just squeezed Skye's hand. It was clear to her fellow Guardians that her mind was not on her present task. "Your doctor...your doctor's just going to come in and take a look at you now..."

Skye looked up, confused as to why the strange doctor who had just spoken to her felt so oddly familiar. "All..all right," she agreed.

Lanie slipped out of the room as Simmons moved to take her place, and the Guardians followed suit. Ryan immediately began the conversation. _Lanie_, he asked, opening up the floor to a group mind-link conversation, _what's going on?_

_We can't leave that girl here,_ Lanie declared to the group.

Her announcement surprised and confused her fellow Guardians. _What are you talking about, babe?_ asked Esposito. _She's SHIELD, she *belongs* here._

Lanie shook her head. _That's just it. She *doesn't* belong here. She belongs with us._ When four pairs of eyes stared at Lanie in complete confusion, she explained, _As I was healing Skye I noticed something strange so I drilled down to her DNA._

_That's why you needed my help,_ Ryan added, recognizing the difficulty immediately.

_Yeah_, Lanie agreed. _And that's when I found it._

_She has the gene?_ asked Beckett.

Lanie shook her head. _Not just the gene,_ she insisted. _I think Skye might have been *born* flipped. Her gene is the most dominant I've ever seen. Even more than in any of us._

Four voices went off in Lanie's mind in near-unison. _What?! How could she possibly..._

_I don't know,_ Lanie replied, silencing the thoughts of her team all at once. _But I do know one thing: until we know who this girl is and what she's capable of, we just can't leave her here._


	4. Chapter 4

"So how am I doing?" Skye asked Simmons.

Simmons tried and failed to mask her astonishment. "I have to run some blood tests to be sure, but it looks like you're fine. Like...like you'd never been shot."

Skye frowned in confusion as she studied the shocked look among three of her friends...and the not-quite-so-shocked look on Coulson's face. "AC?" she asked. "You know something, don't you?"

"Not much," Coulson admitted. "I took something of a...leap of faith." He squeezed Skye's hand, grateful to feel its warmth. "I'm just glad it worked."

"Who *are* these people?" asked Fitz. "How could they possibly do something like this?"

"They're called the Guardians of Shangri La," May announced from the doorway. She was holding a thin folder with a SHIELD insignia emblazoned across it. "I found this in your office." Coulson grabbed the folder out of May's hands, which didn't seem to faze her in the slightest. "I have only one question: if all five of these guys are 084s, how come we know so little about them?"

Ward had similar concerns. "May asked me to find out about them, but there was nothing in the computer *at all*..."

"We go to great lengths to keep information about us from getting into the hands of organizations such as yours," Castle announced from behind them. "I'm surprised you have as much as you have there."

Coulson looked down at the papers he held in his hands. "I have a sneaking suspicion that this folder has an...alternative source of protection." Castle nodded, understanding the implied reference to their common ally.

Skye was getting a little frustrated...and embarrassed. "Guys, as much as I appreciate all the attention, can we take the conversation someplace bigger? Where I can maybe wear some clothes?"

#

Castle let out a low whistle, deeply impressed by the technology he saw in the plane's conference room. "I'm going to have to ask Fallon and Stark to up the tech budget..." he exclaimed.

Fitz caught the name-drop. "Stark? As in Tony Stark?"

Castle simply shrugged. "Long story."

"*And* I think other things take priority right now," May countered. "Like who you people are."

"How much is in that file you keep waving around?" Lanie asked. Coulson handed Lanie the file. She slowly flipped through the few pages of information that Coulson had on hand. "This isn't much more than our names, old photos and our titles."

Coulson nodded. "I did some research for Director Fury when you guys were searching for the North Star. What's in that file is mostly just enough to jog my memory."

"You *researched* them?!" exclaimed Ward. "Why wasn't I able to find that research? Has the Director protected it for some reason?" Coulson shook his head. "Then *what*? Have you guys hacked into our system or something?"

Castle shook his head. "I regularly cast a spell that eliminates almost all evidence of the existence of abilities and our history. Lanie, can I take a look at that folder?" Lanie pushed the folder over to Castle, and he carefully flipped through the pages. "I think I know why this folder exists," Castle mused. "It fits in the loophole."

"Loophole?" asked Coulson.

"We can't permanently effect people's memories or free will," Castle explained. "The spell kills all hard and electronic evidence of who we are and what we can do, but this file is so bare-bones that unless you know enough about us to make the connections..."

"Clearly," agreed May. "Coulson knew enough to make the connections. The rest of us don't. So why don't you enlighten us?"

"We're the successors of a group called the Guardians of Shangri La," Castle began. "We use our combined abilities to protect the world from things it's either unwilling or unprepared to believe in."

May seemed to be trying to size up the men and women in front of her within the context of Castle's explanation. "Combined abilities?" she repeated. "So each of you has different abilities?" The five Guardians nodded. "Like what, exactly?"

"You've already seen mine," Lanie replied.

Skye found herself trying to put the pieces together and found herself failing even as everyone else simply nodded. "What ability is that?" she asked.

"Dr. Esposito saved your life, Skye," Simmons replied. "Although I'm completely at a loss to explain *how* she did it..."

Skye's eyes went wide. "How bad off was I?"

"You were dying," replied Coulson, his voice breaking at the memory of holding her limp, lifeless form in his arms.

"The bullets perforated your intestines," Simmons explained. "You almost bled out first, then with all that bacteria floating around your system...it should have taken you months, maybe even years to recover from those injuries. If you ever recovered at all."

Skye was dumbstruck. "But I've...I've never felt better..." she gasped. She turned to Lanie. "That was *you*?" Lanie nodded. "Thank...thank you..." Lanie quietly nodded a second time in response.

May listened to the conversation closely. "So all of your abilities are as powerful as Dr. Esposito's?" The other four Guardians nodded.

Ward's mind went straight to one of the other Guardian-related event he couldn't explain. "How did you guys get on the plane?"

Castle subtly lifted a finger to admit to the incident. "That would be me."

"And you would be...?" asked Fitz.

"A wizard," Castle replied.

Fitz' and Simmons' eyes went wide almost simultaneously. "A wizard?" exclaimed Fitz. "A magic-wielding, spell-casting wizard?" Castle nodded. "That...that's impossible..."

"Really?" asked Ward, not wanting to get into the deep scientific discussion he was sensing to be inevitable. "Then you explain how they got on the plane. While we're in mid-air."

"A...a portal," Fitz stammered, having been put on the spot. "It...it had to be a portal, like the ones the Asgardians use..." His voice trailed off as even he realized that that explanation didn't fit. Finally he fell back in his chair, dumbstruck as the truth finally sunk in. His eyes drifted back to Castle in amazement. "You're really a wizard?" Castle nodded.

May frowned as the explanation that Castle gave conflicted with her memories of the information in the folder. "Mr. Castle, can I see that folder again, please?" Castle pushed the folder over to May, who pulled out Castle's photo and read the title off the back. "Dr. Esposito's title is Healer, which seems to be self-explanatory. So why is yours Four Winds?"

"It signifies control over the elements," Castle replied.

May nodded, accepting the information in context. She flipped over Ryan's picture. "Agent Ryan?" Ryan nodded in acknowledgement of May's prompt. "What does Warrior Priest signify?"

Ryan opened his mind to connect with the group and 'show off' his ability as a telepath, then immediately recoiled. His head exploded with excruciating pain.

Lanie crossed the room and knelt by her friend's side. "Ryan? Talk to me, what's going on?"

"Feedback," Ryan grunted.

Lanie put her hands to Ryan's temples, eliminating the physical pain as Ryan dialed back his abilities. "Thanks," he told Lanie. Finally he regained the strength to stand. "I'm a telepath," Ryan explained to May. "I tried to connect to everyone's mind to communicate this without speaking, but..."

Ryan and Lanie seemed to come up with the same answer at the same time. The look of inspiration wasn't lost on the rest of the team. "What?" asked Beckett.

"I've only ever felt feedback like this one other time," Ryan explained, scanning the room to verify his suspicions. "My wife is pregnant with our second child." His eyes rested on Skye...and her obvious headache confirmed his suspicions. "The baby's a telepath. I think you might be one, too, Skye."

Skye's eyes went wide. "You think I can *read minds*?!"

"I had something similar happen to me when we were searching for the Prophet," Esposito explained. "When we meet someone with the similar abilities to what we have, the reaction can feel like when the same poles of a magnet try to come together."

"That's what that was?" Skye asked. "What that...noise was?"

Lanie nodded. "It fits. She has the gene..."

Simmons latched onto the familiar term. "Your abilities are *genetic*?"

"The potential to *develop* our abilities is genetic," Lanie explained. "But you have to be exposed to massive amounts of energy in order for your genetically-designated ability to emerge." Lanie turned her attention to Skye. "The thing is, from what I saw in your DNA, if you were exposed to an energy source, it had to have happened when you were *really* young. Maybe even before you were born."

Away from the Guardians' conversation with Skye, May's eyes fixed on Coulson's. _We know so little about Skye's childhood,_ thought May. _What if they're right?_

"Try it," Ryan suggested. "Pick someone in the room and picture a string going between your mind and theirs."

"Like a tin can telephone?" asked Skye.

Ryan nodded. "Exactly like a tin can telephone. Give it a shot."

Skye eyed Ryan warily, then decided to take him at his word. She scanned the room, carefully considering whose thoughts she'd be most interested in hearing. The final decision didn't take long. _I've always wanted to know what goes through that woman's head, _thought Skye. She tried to clear her thoughts and picture that string going between her head and May's...

Nothing. Skye shook her head. "I don't hear anything," she told Ryan.

An idea rose to the front of Coulson's mind as he connected parts of Skye's past to their current conversation. "Telepathy can go the other way, right?" he asked Ryan. "Not just reading people's thoughts, but planting thoughts in their heads?"

Ryan nodded. "That's what I was trying to do earlier." He turned to Skye. "What do you think? Want to try again?"

Skye shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"Your goal is to try and plant a thought in someone's head," Ryan instructed her. "Something that they would never think of on their own. It'll work better if you can think of it in *their* voice, but either way, pick someone and see how it goes."

Skye nodded, then scanned the room a second time. She had to suppress a giggle when inspiration hit. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she connected to the mind of her 'target'...and sighed. "I don't think it worked," she groaned in frustration, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling.

"I *hope* it worked," Simmons countered, suppressing her own giggle in a way that surprised everyone in the room, "because if it didn't, this conversation could quickly get *very* awkward..."

Everyone started to look at each other; each one sizing up their fellow table-mates to see if they were acting 'inappropriately'...everyone except for Ward. Ward had pushed his chair next to Fitz' and slipped his arm around the other man's, caressing Fitz's upper arms with a tenderness that could only be described as romantic. The scientist jumped up like he was sitting on a spring when Ward started to nuzzle on his neck. "Agent Ward!" Fitz exclaimed, "What on Earth do you think you're doing?!"

Ward looked at his hands like they were disconnected from his body. "I...I don't know..." he stammered.

"Agent Ward, this is extremely important," Ryan instructed Ward carefully. "What is the last thing that you remember thinking?"

Ward paused for a moment before his face paled. "That Fitz is the most beautiful man I've ever met and I can't keep my hands off him..." he gasped.

Reactions around the room were decidedly mixed. Simmons gave in to the giggles she had been trying to suppress. Beckett and Lanie quickly followed. May shut down, seemingly conflicted by the humor in recent events and implications of what those same events could mean for their team's future. Coulson stared at Skye in amazement as a thousand random events and stories seemed to click into place at once.

And Skye stared at Ward and through him at the same time. Her face paled; she suddenly realized how grateful she was to be sitting down. "That...that's exactly what I wanted him to think. *Exactly*. I...I did that..."

"Yeah, you did," Ryan agreed. He gently rubbed Skye's back, pouring peace through the physical connection to try to calm her down and let things sink in. "Apparently, Skye, you have the ability to control people's minds."


	5. Chapter 5

Coulson studied Skye with awe. "All this time...I thought he was just coming after me..."

Skye gasped as everyone else in the room frowned with concern and confusion. "You don't think..."

That thought was cut off as Coulson turned to one of the Guardians. "Agent Esposito, could I get your help with something?" asked Coulson.

"What do you need?" asked Esposito.

Coulson turned to Skye to explain. "Agent Esposito's gift is that he can download a copy of your memories and recall any of them as we need them. Even stuff you might not remember that you remember."

Skye gasped a second time as she realized what that meant. "Like what happened to me when I was a kid."

Coulson and Esposito both nodded. "When Dr. Esposito suggested that you might have had this ability as a kid, I had an idea. But in order to see if what I'm thinking might be true, I need to know what happened that day..."

Skye sat up straighter in her chair. "I want to know, too," she agreed eagerly before turning to Esposito. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just relax," Esposito told her. "This will only take a second." Esposito gently laid his hand on top of Skye's and closed his eyes to help his ability to focus quickly. His eyes opened a moment later. "That was weird," he mused.

"What did you see, babe?" asked Lanie.

Knowing everything that he knew about Skye's past, Esposito turned to her first. "I saw your mom," he told. "She was the daughter of an American missionary in China. You look a lot like her."

Tears started to well up in Skye's eyes. "Can you...can you show her to me?"

Esposito nodded before looking to his partner. "Ryan?"

"Of course," he agreed. He connected to Esposito's mind first, then gently connected to Skye's mind, bringing up the intensity as slowly as he could to avoid more feedback.

The tears fell freely from Skye's eyes as one of her earliest memories replayed in her mind. "That's her?" Skye whispered. Esposito nodded. "God, she's beautiful..." Inspired, Skye decided to push her luck. "What about my father?"

"He was out of the picture before you were born," Esposito replied. "I'm sorry."

Coulson broke up the moment, knowing that there were bigger issues at stake. "There was a raid of Skye's village, maybe when she was four or five..."

Esposito's expression instantly darkened. "She was four," he declared decisively. "And you were right, Coulson, she did have her gifts as a kid."

"How can you tell?" asked May.

"Her thoughts at the time were small, but they were intensely focused," replied Esposito. "Help me, save me, that kind of thing. When anyone came near her, saving her became their *only* priority."

"That's what I suspected," Coulson agreed.

Simmons also agreed with a nod. "It makes sense, in a way. A child in that type of situation would look solely for safety, security and comfort. And with your gift..."

The guilt in Skye's voice was obvious. "I convinced all those people to die for me..." she declared, her words trailing off.

Ryan grabbed Skye's hand and poured as much peace into her soul as he dared. "You were *four* years old, Skye," he insisted with firm conviction. "And in a situation that had everyone running for their lives. You had no idea what you were doing."

Coulson had his own single-minded agenda. "Did she see any of the people who were attacking them?"

Esposito nodded. "They were led by some guy named Quinn..."

Ward's eyes went wide. "*Ian* Quinn?"

"No," replied Esposito, shaking his head. "I think his name was Simon Quinn."

"That's Ian Quinn's father," Simmons exclaimed.

Esposito turned back to his wife. "But that's when it got...weird. Even for me."

"How so?" asked Lanie.

"Quinn looked at me," Esposito replied.

Skye frowned, confused. "Quinn looked at me?" she asked.

Esposito shook his head before returning his attention to his wife. "Usually, I can tell when someone's looking at the person who's memories I'm replaying. If someone's looking at me, I can tell that they're looking at them, not me. But this time, I caught Quinn looking at *me*. I knew that Skye remembered the event as Quinn walking by the hole where she was hiding. But Quinn didn't do that. He stopped and looked directly at *me*."

Coulson sat back in amazement as his theory was confirmed. "That makes so much sense..."

"*That* made sense to you?" asked Esposito. "How?"

"We've been tracking an international terrorist known as the Clairvoyant," Coulson replied. "He's been one step ahead of us the whole time."

Fitz rolled his eyes. "There's no such thing as a real..." The entire room fixed scornful stares in Fitz' direction, and his argument dissolved on his lips. "Sorry. Force of habit."

"Anyway," Coulson continued, deliberately ignoring Fitz' outburst, "I've noticed two things every time we've had a run-in with the Clairvoyant's men: first, they always say that *I'm* their target, but second, the Clairvoyant seems hell-bent on controlling his soldiers' every move...most of the time against their will."

Ward caught on to Coulson's train of thought right away. "If the Clairvoyant found out about a child with Skye's abilities, I can see how he would have stopped at nothing to find her."

"And why people went to the lengths they did to protect her," agreed May.

"You think Simon Quinn might be this Clairvoyant you've been looking for?" asked Esposito. Coulson nodded. "And he was looking for you..."

"Because of my death and...resurrection," Coulson replied.

A voice came over the intercom, interrupting their conversation. "SHIELD 616, this is Tower Michael Tango. You are in violation of SHIELD directive 1297."

Coulson rolled his eyes as the Guardians looked to him for answers. "Disobeying a direct order," he explained. "Quinn's son is in my holding cell. SHIELD wanted me to turn him over for interrogation."

Castle's eyes widened at the news. "We could use him to help find the Clairvoyant."

Coulson nodded in agreement. "But in order to let us do that at this point, we'd have to tell SHIELD about both your involvement and the re-emergence not only of Skye's abilities, but her memories of the Clairvoyant's attack. Anyone here interested in doing that?" The room fell silent as every head shook a negative response.

"Prepare to be boarded and relinquish command," the voice continued.

"We should get out of here," Beckett suggested.

Ryan shook his head. "No way. Not without Skye." Skye's head turned toward Ryan when he mentioned her name. "You need training. A lot of training, and practice, or an ability like yours can be *extremely* dangerous. I can help you if you're willing to let me."

The ceiling above their heads shook as something landed above their heads with a large *thud*. "That would be the transport," Ward announced.

"I'm open to suggestions," Coulson insisted.

"I have a suggestion," Skye offered, raising her hand from her place at the conference table. "Agent Ryan said I need to practice. How about I start now?"

As Coulson went upstairs to meet the transport, Castle started by casting a soundproofing spell around the conference room. "Anyone outside this room won't be able to hear us now."

"Really?" Skye exclaimed. "Cool!"

"You sure you're ready for this?" Ryan asked Skye.

"No," Skye replied nervously. "But you can coach me through it? Right?"

Ryan turned to Ward. "When you were flirting with Agent Fitz earlier, how did it feel?"

Ward blushed. "Considering the fact that I'm *straight*," he replied, slightly over-emphasizing his sexual orientation, "surprisingly natural. Like I was flirting with a girl."

"Then you should be fine, Skye," agreed Ryan. _I'm going to be reading the thoughts of anyone you work on, though,_ he warned in Skye's mind. _So make sure you listen if you hear me like this, okay?_

Skye's eyes went wide. "That was you? In my head just now?" Ryan nodded. "Cool!" Skye exclaimed. "Okay, I'll do whatever you say, teach."

Ryan smiled, remembering the last student who had called him 'teach'. "Good luck, then, 'grasshopper'," he teased.

"We're all counting on you," May warned.

Skye shifted uncomfortably in her chair as she waited for her 'practice' to begin. "Gee," she muttered, "that's comforting..."


	6. Chapter 6

Coulson was surprised to see which agent came down from the transport docked above them. _Maybe we have a shot after all..._"Garrett? What the hell are you doing here?"

Garrett was all business. "Well, as opposed to the level 8 jackass I'm staring at, I still follow orders."

"You're the worst at following orders," countered Coulson, knowing exactly how big a lie Garrett's statement really was.

"Maybe..." agreed Garrett with a mischevious smile. He pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket. "But I like this one. You are to immediately turn Ian Quinn over for transport to the fridge." A second man came down the ladder. "Agent Antoine Triplett, Agent Phillip Coulson," announced Garrett, introducing the two men to each other. "You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Phil's one of our finest."

Coulson was touched for a half-second by Garrett's rare, sincere compliment. "An honor, sir," said Triplett. Coulson nodded.

"Trip joined me as your specialist after Ward came to *your* circus," Garrett explained. He turned to said specialist. "Go secure the prisoner."

"Yes, sir," said Trip as he climbed down the stairs.

Coulson led Garrett to the conference room. "Phil, come on," he teased. "Just because Fury gave you this pretty plane doesn't mean they won't shoot it out of the sky..." His voice trailed off when he realized where he was...and how big a crowd he had just joined.

"Why are you *really* here, Garrett?" Coulson demanded. "SHIELD could have sent any security team to collect Quinn. Why you?"

_Answer the question, _Skye projected into Garrett's mind.

"I've been chasing him since Malta," Garrett admitted quickly. "Then yesterday, your little Italian job cost my team weeks of work."

Ryan squelched the protest that he could feel forming in Skye's mind. _Keep your focus,_ _Skye. This isn't about defending your boss. This about keeping our access to Quinn's son._

"You can't have him," Coulson declared decisively. "Not yet."

"This isn't a request," countered Garrett.

"Things have changed since that order was written," argued Coulson. "We have two solid leads on the Clairvoyant."

_Is that why all these people.._.thought Garrett.  
Ryan caught on quickly. _Red flag, _he told Skye through their mind-link. _He's wondering who we are._  
_That must be why all these spare agents are here_, Skye projected into Garrett's mind.

"That's why you called in backup?" Garrett asked out loud.

"Our little 'Italian job', as you called it," Coulson replied, putting air quotes around the mocking title, "was far more productive than we could have imagined. We have reason to believe that Ian Quinn is the Clairvoyant's son."

Garrett rolled his eyes. "Oh, so this is all about your legendary 'Clairvoyant'..."

_The Clairvoyant is real,_ Skye projected into Garrett's mind. _Shut up and pay attention. This isn't just about Ian Quinn anymore._

The complaint died on Garrett's lips. "Go on."

Ryan had to resist the urge to smile. _Nicely done._

"We need Quinn on the bus so we can move quickly on the information he gives us," Coulson suggested. "You're welcome to interrogate him here if you like."

"You're *sure* that Simon Quinn is the Clairvoyant?" asked Garrett, clearly hesitant to not implement the orders he had been so hell-bent to obey when he first came on board.

"We are," replied Coulson.

Garrett hesitated for only a moment before coming to a decision. "I need to clear this with HQ before I jump out of the frying pan into the same fire you people are burning in."

Coulson nodded in agreement. "Feel free to use my office. Top of the stairs, make a right."

The group had a thousand questions the minute Garrett was outside the range of the soundproofing spell. "*Two* leads on the Clairvoyant?!" asked May, forcing herself not to raise her voice.

"Gives us an excuse to split up," Coulson replied. He turned to Ryan. "How'd she do?"

"Gold star for her first 'real' mission," Ryan complimented with a smile.

Skye looked over to Ryan and shared his smile, knowing how things could have gone without his 'coaching'. "You're still going to train me, though, right?"

"Count on it," agreed Ryan.

"Then Skye, you need to go with the Guardians..." Coulson began.

Esposito cut him off. "I think you need to come with us, too, Coulson."

This stunned the SHIELD agents in the room. "What?!" exclaimed Simmons. "Why on Earth would you need..."

Coulson, though, had an inkling of why Esposito would make such a suggestion. "Is this about...?" Esposito nodded.

May frowned in confusion. "I don't get it. Why would you need to be with Skye while she trains?"

"This isn't about Skye," replied Coulson. He turned to Ryan. "Can you make sure everyone in the room can see him?" When Ryan nodded, Coulson announced to his team, "then it's time you guys met an old friend of mine."

The SHIELD agents jumped back, stunned, as a Bengal tiger casually leapt up on their conference room table. "That...that's a..." stammered Simmons.

"Tiger," said Fitz, completing the thought.

"How did it get in here?" asked May.

"He's been here all along," Coulson explained. "But until Agent Ryan here linked all of our minds together, only the Guardians and I could see him."

May couldn't seem to take her eyes off the tiger's face. "What *is* he?"

Coulson opened his mouth to speak, then closed it when he realized his old description of the animal no longer fit. "I suppose he's my...spirit animal, I guess."

The tiger looked surprisingly relieved. _Finally_, Raja's rumbling voice echoed in the minds of every person in the room. _You have accepted me as something other than a 'hallucination'. Now we can 'get to work', Warrior Coulson._

Simmons, in particular, was stuck on the existence of the voice that had just presented itself in her head. "Am I crazy," she asked the group, "or did that tiger just *talk* to me?"

"He just 'talked' to all of us," Esposito shrugged. "It's how he rolls."

"What did he mean by, 'now we can get to work'?" asked Coulson.

Esposito tried and failed to keep himself from smiling. "You *do* have a lot to learn," he replied.

"Which is why I need to come with you," added Coulson. Esposito nodded.

Garrett returned during the break in the conversation. "HQ agreed to let us keep Quinn on the plane for now...but if these leads don't pan out it's all going to be on you, Coulson."

"They'll pan out," Coulson replied confidently.

Skye immediately noticed where Garrett's eyes were focused...and where they weren't. _Garrett can't see the tiger spirit, can he?_  
_Nope_, Ryan replied.  
_That is so cool..._ Skye exclaimed.

"I have a contact in New York who's been looking into Ian Quinn's more secure financial assets," Coulson lied smoothly. "I'm going to take my computer girl and her team with me down there. I'm hoping we can follow the money back to dear old dad."

"Sounds logical," Garrett agreed.

"I trust I can leave my 'pretty little plane' and young Mr. Quinn in your capable hands, then?" asked Coulson.

Garrett raised a wary eyebrow. "You're going to let *me* run your playground while you're gone?"

Coulson nodded. "Ward, May, Fitz and Simmons will stay with you and provide any...additional assistance you may require."

Garrett still wasn't buying it. "What's the catch?"

"Don't scratch my paint job," Coulson replied quickly.

_Something else is going on here..._ thought Garrett.  
Ryan caught the thought immediately. _Red flag,_ he warned Skye. _Garrett's getting suspicious._  
_Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,_ Skye projected. _Just enjoy the perks while you can get them..._

"All right then," Garrett agreed without pressing further. "I'll have the transport's pilot send the plane and its escorts back to HQ."

"Thank you," said Coulson, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt. He shook Garrett's hand. "Good luck. You'll keep me posted?"

"As long as you do the same," agreed Garrett.

Coulson led Skye and the Guardians from the conference room to the loading bay. "You ready for this?" Skye asked her mentor quietly.

"Are *you*?" Coulson countered.

Skye grabbed Coulson's hand and squeezed in what she hoped would be a reassuring show of support as they disappeared.


	7. Chapter 7

Skye shook her head in disbelief as she turned around in amazement, gawking at her surroundings. "We...we were just on the bus..." she exclaimed.

"And now we're not," Coulson shrugged, trying and failing to make the whole experience sound casual.

"Where *are* we, exactly?" asked Skye, still in disbelief about the change in her surroundings.

Castle beamed with something that approached an almost-fatherly pride. "Welcome to the Network," he told the agents.

"The Network?" asked Coulson.

"Well it's not the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," a voice called out to them, "but it works for us."

Coulson turned to face the man who had gotten his attention...and his jaw dropped from the shock of what he saw.

The man came up to him, amused by the way Coulson was not looking him in the eye. "I'm...Mark Fallon..." Fallon told Coulson, suppressing a chuckle as he tried to get the other man to look *up*. "It's nice to meet you, Agent..."

Coulson didn't answer. His eyes were fixated on the being he saw standing at attention by Fallon's feet. "You...you have one, too?"

Fallon didn't miss a beat. "Mmm hmm," he agreed with a nod. "They're actually two different parts of the same being."

Coulson finally looked up. "The *same* being?" he exclaimed in disbelief. Fallon nodded again. "How...?"

Fallon shrugged. "Hell if I know," he replied. He then attempted to introduce himself a second time. "Mark Fallon."

Coulson finally shook Fallon's hand. "Phil Coulson."

Ryan turned to Esposito. "*This* is the guy you guys want me to train?"

"Yep," replied Ryan.

"Okay then," said Fallon. He took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "We'll start with a run. You up for it?"

Coulson took his own jacket off, tossing it on top of Fallon's...then watched in shock as Fallon took off at a dead sprint. "I thought only Captain America could run that fast..." he whispered.

Then Coulson's vision was blinded by a flash of orange light. _So can you,_ the tiger's voice rumbled in his mind. _Go_.

Coulson started running as fast as he thought he could go. And then he went faster. And faster. And faster. Finally when Fallon was just steps ahead of him, the younger man pushed open a side door to the warehouse and jumped.

Landing two stories over Coulson's head. Coulson gawked at the man who was standing above him. Fallon, though, was unapologetic. "You coming?!" he called down to his 'student'.

Coulson fought his disbelief, planted his feet, and jumped. He landed right next to Fallon...where his jaw almost hit the ground level. "How the *hell* did I just do that?!" Coulson exclaimed.

Fallon didn't answer his question. "You ever play 'Follow the Leader' when you were a kid, Coulson?" he asked instead as he looked up at his next jumping target.

"Yeah..." Coulson replied warily, unsure of the implications of the answer to his question.

Fallon smiled wickedly. "Consider this the X Games version," he declared.

The 'run' went on for two hours. Coulson stopped thinking after that first jump and just let his body run on what were, apparently, a whole new set of instincts. They ran, they jumped, they spun and twisted themselves with a level of speed and flexibility that would have left May in the hospital.

Eventually the two men stopped on the roof of the warehouse. "Let's stop for now," Fallon told Coulson and motioned for the two men to sit down and lean against a nearby brick wall.

Coulson turned his head to his left and right, studying his surroundings. Now that he was allowed a moment to catch his breath, his rational mind took that opportunity to catch up with him. And scream in disbelief. "How the hell did we just do that?!" he repeated.

"You mean you don't know?" Fallon countered, surprised. Coulson shook his head. "I thought you studied the legends."

"I did," Coulson replied.

"What's the legend of the Shuāng jiàn?" Fallon pushed back, putting Coulson on the spot.

It took the older man a moment to respond. "The double-edged sword? All I could find was that it had something to do with the ability to raise an army on command and release them when the war was over."

Fallon nodded. "That's part of it, but not all of it. It's not like the Xiānzhī stands on a street corner recruiting..."

Coulson chuckled at the mental picture of Esposito that comment left him with. "Yeah, I'll bet. So how do they get their army?"

"The tiger spirit," replied Fallon.

Coulson stared at Fallon in disbelief. "How?!"

"He used to just possess anybody he found to be 'worthy'," Fallon explained. "But now that we're a little more organized we have guys who volunteer for the priviledge."

"Really?" asked Coulson.

Fallon nodded. "They train year round to be ready, just in case."

Coulson was still trying to wrap his head around the idea of how the army was created. "Why would anyone *volunteer* to be possessed?"

"You just got a taste of it," Fallon replied. "You tell me."

Coulson thought about what he had just experienced. And how he *felt* during the experience. The power. The speed. The complete and total feeling of freedom. It had felt like he could do absolutely anything he wanted. With nothing to stand in his way.

He felt like a superhero.

Coulson thought about the guys who volunteered for the twisted tortures of the Centipede super soldier programs to feel like he had just felt. And all he had had to do was just stand there..."Yeah," he realized, "I can see why guys would volunteer for this. So does the tiger just follow these guys around in case they're needed?"

Fallon mouthed a silent "oh" before shaking his head. "No, the tiger doesn't follow all of them around. Apparently, just you and me."

"Why *us*?" asked Coulson.

"From what I can tell," Fallon replied, "it's a combination of things. For one thing, you have to have proven yourself worthy by going to extraordinary efforts to save the world."

Curiosity got the better of Coulson. "Can I ask...?"

"I helped the Guardians save the world from the Mayan Apocalypse," Fallon replied.

Coulson raised an eyebrow in skeptical disbelief. "I thought the Mayan calendar..." When Fallon glared at him, Coulson quickly raised his hands in surrender. "Different Mayan apocalypse?"

"Most definitely," said Fallon. "What about you?"

Coulson's expression darkened quickly. "Loki. Battle of New York."

"Yeah, I met Loki on the George Washington Bridge," Fallon agreed. "Interesting guy."

Coulson chuckled bitterly at the sarcastic understatement before a question formed in his mind. "Hey, why weren't you guys there that day?"

"Cap said they could handle it," Fallon replied.

That was probably the last thing Coulson expected to hear. "He waved you guys off?" When Fallon nodded, Coulson rested the back of his head against the wall. "Since I *died* that day, remind me to kick his ass next time I see him."

Fallon chuckled and nodded before the first part of Coulson's comments caught his attention. "Wait, you *died* that day?"

Coulson nodded. "I was dead for days, apparently. Director Fury moved his version of heaven and earth to bring me back..." As Coulson's voice trailed off, Fallon noted that the older man's expression had a definitive 'don't ask' air about it. "Anyway, when I woke up the tiger spirit was there swearing his allegiance to me."

"And you didn't think to ask what that meant?" asked Fallon.

"I had had false memories of a vacation in Tahiti implanted in my head to mask what had been done to me," Coulson countered. "When I started to remember the truth I thought the tiger was a hallucination."

"I can see why you might have thought that," agreed Fallon.

Coulson stared out at the view from the rooftop, thinking about what 'could have been' if he had fully accepted the tiger spirit's help when he first saw the beast. "So what does this 'honor' mean for me in the long run?"

Fallon, to Coulson's surprise, smiled. "Full access to the tiger spirit - and every bonus that comes along with him - any time you need it."

Coulson was grateful he was sitting down. "So you're telling me I'm now a *superhero*?"

"If that's what you want to call it, yeah," Fallon agreed.

Coulson sat back and let the Fallon's words sink in for a minute. It didn't take long, though, before he found the pull of the superhero idea impossible to resist. He stood up and offered a hand to his new friend. "So, sensei. What else can we do?"


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **This chapter was inspired by a conversation I've been having with Evenmoor after her comments about Ch. 6. Thanks for your help!

* * *

Skye's eyes widened as she watched her 'boss' take off after Fallon. "I had no idea he could *move* that fast," she commented.

"I'm willing to bet he didn't either," Ryan agreed with a chuckle.

Skye turned to face Ryan. "You know what's going on with him, don't you?"

"I'm going to let him tell you when he's ready," Ryan replied. "You have plenty to worry about without focusing on your boss."

Skye's face fell as her attention refocused on why she was there in the first place. "Right. So what's first on the agenda, 'teach'?"

Lanie interrupted their conversation. "First you're going to come with me to the clinic. I want to have another doctor draw some blood and take a closer look at your DNA."

"Really?" asked Ryan. "Who's on call today? Grumpy?"

Skye snickered at the nickname. "Grumpy?"

"Everyone uses nicknames, pseudonyms and code names down here," Ryan explained. "We'll come up with yours as we go."

"Grumpy's on a consult for the ME's office," Lanie told Ryan. "Yoda's in today. I figured he's be a good second opinion."

"Yoda, huh?" Ryan mused. A smile crept into the corners of his mouth. "That could be an interesting conversation..."

Skye was starting to wonder why it was such a big deal for her to talk to this 'Yoda'. "So who is this guy?"

Lanie didn't answer her. "C'mon," she nudged Skye, "let's go."

Skye followed Lanie down a hallways and through enough corridors to feel totally lost before walking through a door into what looked like a cross between a pediatrician's waiting room and a drug company's research facility. A middle-aged gentleman was sitting at one of the lab tables, working diligently on something in what looked to be a very battered notebook. "Yoda!" Lanie called out. "You busy?"

The middle-aged man took off his wire-rimmed glasses and tried to rub the fatigue out of his eyes. "Nah, just updating some research notes. What do you got?"

"New patient," Lanie replied. "This is Skye."

'Yoda' stuck his hand out. "Skye, hello," he greeted Skye in a voice that was a poor quality impersonation of the Star Wars character. "Yoda I am. How you help may I?"

"That is *terrible*," Skye replied, laughing as she shook Yoda's hand. "But it's nice to meet you."

"I need a *full* blood workup and DNA profile done on our new friend here," Lanie instructed Yoda.

Yoda nodded, his voice returning to a gentle 'normal'. "Okay. Should take me about twenty minutes."

Skye frowned, confused by the timeframe. "I thought DNA typing took a lot longer than that."

"I'll be back when that typing's ready," Lanie announced, excusing herself.

Yoda nodded to acknowledge Lanie as she left before turning his attention back to Skye. "Two weeks is only the timeframe if you have a giant backlog."

"And you don't have Tony Stark's money to get the latest equipment," agreed Skye.

"That doesn't hurt," agreed Yoda. He started to pull together the equipment to draw blood from Skye's arm. "So what's your story?"

"My story?" repeated Skye.

Yoda nodded as he rolled up the sleeve of Skye's shirt. "There are two types of people who come through here: people who watched something happen that they didn't understand and people who did something they didn't understand." He stuck the needle in Skye's arm, but the girl seemed so entranced by the sound of his voice that Skye didn't even flinch. "Now...the Yīzhì brought you in here and asked for bloodwork, so I'm guessing it's not the former?"

Skye shook her head. She blushed as she rolled her sleeve back down. "Apparently I have the power to 'bend people's minds to my will'."

Yoda let out a low whistle as he started the centrifuge. "That's a dangerous power..."

Skye's face fell again. "Yeah, tell me about it," she agreed.

"How do *you* feel about it?" asked Yoda.

Skye leaned back in the chair and sighed. "I don't really know. I mean, there's a part of me that's thrilled to be able to do something so amazing, and yet..."

"You understand how much your ability could possibly to do hurt the people around you."

Skye nodded. "When I was a little girl, the village I was living in was attacked by some bad guys who were looking to kidnap me and control this 'power'. The *entire* village died to protect me."

Yoda could feel the crushing emotions radiating off Skye in waves. "You feel guilty that those people died."

"They died in my place, and many of them against their will," Skye countered. "How could I *not* feel guilty about that?"

"You were a terrified little girl who didn't know what she was doing," Yoda argued. "You were just trying to survive."

Skye jumped up and started to pace. "And what about now?!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to have to watch every thought that goes through my head, and when I'm talking to someone..." Her voice trailed off as she hesitated, not wanting to admit what she was thinking. "When I'm talking to someone, how can I know that they're saying what they're really thinking or just what I want to hear?"

Yoda's smile radiated warmth. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Skye slumped back down in her chair in a defeated grumble. "Yeah, easy for you to say."

"Easy for me to say..." Yoda muttered under his breath. As he put the components of Skye's blood into the analyzer, Yoda sighed, seemingly coming to a decision as he worked. "What if I told you that I believe *any* 'power' can be used for good as long as a good person is the one controlling it?"

The absolute conviction in Yoda's voice got Skye's attention. "You sound like you know something about this."

"I do," Yoda agreed. He pulled a second chair over so that he was sitting directly across from Skye. "When I was young and stupid, I started doing research for the military. They've been trying to create a super soldier since World War II, and I thought I had the idea that would finally crack the code."

Skye found a spark of familiarity in Yoda's story. "Go on."

Yoda continued as he rolled up his sleeves. "Well, being young and stupid, instead of finding the right research subjects to test my process on, I tested it on myself."

"What happened?" asked Skye, suspecting that she already knew the answer. Yoda positioned himself so that his right forearm was in an open space between himself and Skye. Skye watched in horror as the arm turned a very familar shade of green and started to grow. She tried to cover the arm with her hands, but the rock-hard muscles she felt underneath her touch were the last straw. Skye jumped up from her seat, sending the chair crashing to the floor as she backed away from 'Yoda' in shock. "You..." she finally stammered, "you're...you're the..."

'Yoda' rolled his sleeves back down over his forearms and casually buttoned the cuffs. "Skye, I'm not normally supposed to do this down here, but I think you and I need to be 'properly' introduced." He crossed the room and offered his hand to Skye in greeting. "Doctor Bruce Banner. Nice to meet you."

Skye hesistated for a long moment before shaking Bruce's hand. "I...I know who you are, Doctor Banner..." she stammered. As the shock slowly wore off, though, Skye started to recognize the differences between the man standing in front of her and the rumors from the Internet that she was so familiar with. "You're much more...in control than I thought you would be," she told him.

Bruce smiled. "That's kind of deliberate, to be honest," he admitted. "I like leaving the Hulk's legends where they are. Makes it easier for me to live a normal life now. People just assume that I couldn't possibly be 'that guy'."

"How..."

Bruce anticipated the question and answered it before Skye could finish asking. "Master Mùshī." When Skye stared at him in blank confusion, Bruce clarified, "I guess you know him as Agent Ryan."

"He helped you get the Hulk under control?" asked Skye.

Bruce nodded. "I was terrified of what had happened to me. What I could do, what I thought I would become...my personality split. All of the rage, almost all of the power went into..."

"Him?" asked Skye.

Bruce nodded again. "He was so uncontrolled because all my emotions were on *that* side of the wall. And as much as I could try to live without emotion, I couldn't. That's no way to *live*. I traveled the world, desperate to find any way to control my thoughts and emotions in the hopes of getting rid of the Hulk once and for all. But when I started to feel any degree of strong emotion, he came out."

"How did Agent Ry..."

"Master Mùshī," Bruce corrected.

Skye blushed. "Sorry. How did Master Mùshī help you?"

"You know about the gene, right?" asked Bruce. Skye nodded. "The theory is that the experiment flipped me, but because of where my head was at, it went all wrong. Master Mùshī knocked down the wall and helped me get into the headspace I should have been in all along."

"And now you can control...it?" asked Skye.

"Completely. Even developed the ability I was born to have."

The admission surprised Skye. "Something totally new? On top of what the Hulk can do?" Bruce nodded. "What is it?" asked Skye.

Bruce let out a quiet chuckle, knowing the irony of what he was about to admit. "Empathy. I can sense everything that you're feeling...up to the point of feeling it myself if I chose to."

"Really?" Skye asked, suprised. "You ran away from strong emotions for all those years..."

"And now I can feel not only my own emotions, but those of anybody around me," Bruce agreed with a smile. "So *now* do you understand why I feel the way I do about people with powers like yours?"

Skye let out the breath she didn't know she was holding before she nodded. "So you think I can learn to control this? Do something good with it?"

Bruce gently squeezed Skye's hand in a show of support. "Skye, I promise you. If I can do it, you can do it."


	9. Chapter 9

"C'mon," Lanie nudged Skye, "let's go."

Beckett watched as Lanie escorted Skye down the corridor toward the clinic. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the look on her partner's face. "What's the matter, Esposito," she teased, "you and the missus having a fight?"

Esposito, to Beckett's surprise, was all business. "Beckett, I think I need some time at the temple."

All thoughts of further teasing died in Beckett's mind. "Everything ok? I think this is the first time you've asked me to take you there."

"I thought your rule was no questions asked once one of us request a trip?" Esposito countered.

Beckett pouted, briefly annoyed that Esposito was throwing her own words back at her. "Okay then," she relented, "step into my office..."

Her 'office' was a small corner of the bullpen that had been set up with comfortable cushions for meditation. It was used by all the Guardians at various times - Castle in particular found it to be a great spot to take a nap - but the space was used by Beckett far more than anyone else. "Get comfortable," Beckett told Esposito, "you don't want to come back and have to bug Lanie because you sat on your leg the wrong way. Trust me." Esposito nodded, sitting down cross-legged on a couple of thick cushions. "Close your eyes and focus on your breathing," Beckett continued.

Esposito followed Beckett's directions, then felt her hands cover his own and the world dissolve away in a curtain of blinding light.

#

They woke up in the courtyard of a Buddhist temple, surrounded by five Tibetan men who looked to be deep in meditation themselves. Esposito studied the men, looking for any indication of their level of consciousness. "Beckett," he whispered, "are they...here?"

"Yes, honored Xiānzhī, we are 'here'," Ngawang replied, clearly annoyed at having had his meditation disturbed.

"Be gracious with your successor, Ngawang," Wangchuk told his brother. "After all, I believe this is the first time he has paid us a visit." Wangchuk then turned his attention to Esposito. "How may we assist you, brother?"

"We are facing a new enemy," Esposito replied. "Our allies believe him to possess psychic ability. Enough so that they call him the Clairvoyant."

Wangchuk listened patiently to everything that Esposito was telling him. "What gifts does your enemy possess?"

"Our ally believes the Clairvoyant has the ability to see the future," Esposito replied.

Wangchuk nodded. "I see. So how may we help you defeat this enemy, honored Xiānzhī?"

"The legend we first discovered about the Sìfāng said that I have the ability to see the past *and* the future," Esposito replied. "Is that true?"

Wangchuk nodded. "It is."

Esposito's eyes went wide. "Why haven't I seen more of the future before now?"

"Because you've had no *interest* in seeing the future before now," Ngawang explained, his annoyance never having abated. "Among your brothers and sisters you were the one least interested in embracing even your most basic abilities." Esposito opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it and let his predecessor continue. "You only learned how to maintain your memories when the pressure in your brain almost killed you. And since then you've done almost nothing to strengthen your abilities beyond their simplest level..."

Esposito fought to control his own defensive emotions, knowing that his predecessor was right. "I'm sorry," Esposito sincerely apologized. "I'm ready to change that."

Ngawang got up and walked around Esposito in a slow circle, seemingly sizing up his successor's intentions. "Yes," he mused out loud. "I think you finally might be. First, answer me this. What are the two components that make up the future?"

Esposito took the time to think through Ngawang's question carefully. "Outside circumstances. You can't create a hurricane."

Ngawang nodded curtly. "And the second?"

"Personal choice, both yours and the choices of others. You can plan and dream all you want, but the only actions you have any control over are your own."

Ngawang seemed satisfied, if not yet pleased. "Think about what you've experienced of your gifts so far. Which side of this should *you* focus on?"

"Personal experiences. The memories I carry around in my head."

Ngawang nodded in agreement. "The gods will take care of the 'outside circumstances', as you call them. Remember this, young Xiānzhī: the gods *want* you to be able to see the future. If you keep your mind attuned to your past and the pasts of those you carry with you, the gods will fill in the blanks and you *will* be able to see the future."

"How do I keep my mind 'attuned to the past'?" asked Esposito.

Ngawang stood up and crossed the temple courtyard to sit in front of his successor. "Honored one, may I see the memories you keep with you and how you organize them?"

Esposito frowned, confused. "You can do that?"

Ngawang soon shared his confusion. "You *cannot*?"

"When we were searching for the North Star," Esposito explained, "we met a man called the Prophet who shared aspects of my ability. When I searched for the man I discovered who he was *because* I wasn't able to get anywhere near him."

Ngawang rolled his eyes. "Yet another defense birthed in fear," he grumbled. Out loud, he was far more stern with his successor. "You can read *anyone* you wish, honored one," Ngawang explained. "Reading those few who share your gift is not something to be feared. It is a great blessing."

"I didn't *fear*..." Esposito protested quickly.

Ngawang cut him off, ignoring Esposito's outburst. "If and when you are lucky enough to read someone who shares your gift, it is a chance to delve deeply enough into the past that it could only *strengthen* you. It does you no harm to do so. Now please, may we continue?"

Esposito nodded, submitting to his instructor and leaving his palms resting open on his knees. Ngawang placed his hands on Esposito's and their world, once again, exploded in a flash of blinding white light.

#

When they arrived in Esposito's mind, Ngawang saw the problem immediately as he stared at the never-ending racks of perfectly stacked memory cards. "Who taught you this system?"

"Tenzin," Esposito replied, clearly confused. "He said this was the way you organized..."

Ngawang, to Esposito's surprise, grew even more frustrated almost instantly. "You stupid child," he muttered under his breath, "if you hadn't already crossed over..." After taking time to calm himself down, Ngawang turned to instruct his patiently waiting student. "Allow me to show you how I *actually* 'organize' my memories."

The 'room' suddenly went black. "Master Xiānzhī?" Esposito whispered quietly.

"This is how I 'organize', as you call it, the memories of those I have met," Ngawang declared.

The 'sky' above them exploded. What had once been black was now covered in what looked, to Esposito, like a giant constellation map. "What is this?"

"This is the combination of the memories you carry with the memories I have acquired over the years," Ngawang explained.

"What are the lines connecting the...dots?" asked Esposito.

"Those are the connections that humans make over their lifetimes."

Esposito re-considered the memories around them, staring up at them in awe. "That's what you meant about being 'attuned to the past', isn't it? When we stretch those lines out from the past, we can follow them to see the future."

Ngawang, for the first time since Esposito had entered the temple, smiled. "Finally you are beginning to embrace your destiny, young one." When he noticed a fresh connection between one of his memories and one of Esposito's, though, Ngawang's smile left him. "Who is this girl?" he asked his successor.

"Who?" Esposito countered. He followed Ngawang's line of sight to the memory the older man was closely examining. "Skye? We're not entirely sure. She's a projector, we know that much. Super powerful. And Lanie says her genes are stronger than any of ours."

"I'm not surprised," Ngawang grumbled. "We need to get back to the temple," he then announced. "Immediately."

#

Ngawang was moving back toward his brothers almost as soon as Esposito could re-focus on the temple surrounding him. "Lobsang," he called out. "I have...news."

Lobsang frowned. "What news, brother?"

"The child lives."

The color drained from Lobsang's face almost instantly. "She's *alive*?" Ngawang nodded, his eyes widening seemingly more by the second.

Beckett watched the conversation in wary confusion. "Who?" she demanded to know. "What child are you talking about?"

"Skye," Esposito replied. "Ngawang saw her in one of my memories and freaked."

Lobsang seemed to be having trouble keeping himself upright. "Tell me about her," he asked, almost plaintively.

"She's a projective telepath," Beckett replied. "She had the gift as a girl, but seems to have suppressed it. Ryan's helping her to learn to control it..." Overwhelming curiosity ended Beckett's description as her mind was consumed by one simple question. "Master Mùshī, how could you possibly know Skye?"

Lobsang seemed to be getting himself under control even as tears were starting to fall from his eyes. "Mistress Lièrén," he quietly admitted, "the young woman you call Skye...she is my daughter."


	10. Chapter 10

"So, sensei. What else can we do?"

Fallon helped Coulson up to a standing position and pushed on a loose brick in the wall they had been leaning against. The wall opened up to reveal...a hole. A large, deep, hole. "After you," Fallon suggested.

Coulson raised a curious eyebrow in Fallon's direction. When Fallon remained unfazed, Coulson took a 'leap of faith' and jumped, landing in what looked to be a sparsely decorated executive's office. He rolled away from his landing spot, expecting Fallon to follow shortly after him. Coulson then tried to get up...and failed. His left ankle refused to support his weight.

Fallon landed in the room a moment later, rolling up to a standing position with practised ease. It was only then that he noticed that Coulson wasn't getting up. "What happened?" asked Fallon.

"My ankle," Coulson replied, "I think I twisted it."

Fallon had zero compassion for Coulson's injury. "Get up."

Coulson looked up at Fallon, stunned, confused, and slightly frustrated. "I *can't*," he complained.

"You're *wrong*," Fallon insisted. "Get up."

At Fallon's insistence, Coulson tried to put weight on his ankle again. He gawked at the younger man in amazement when he was able to push himself up to a standing position free of *any* pain. "I *swear*," he insisted. "A second ago I couldn't stand on this ankle."

Fallon smiled. "Oh, I believe you," he agreed.

It only took a split second for Coulson to make the connection. "Tiger spirit?"

"Haven't had to visit the Yīzhì once," Fallon replied confidently. "The tiger's taken care of any injury I've ever had."

Coulson's eyes widened. "Any?!"

Fallon nodded. "Part of the possession gig. When the spirit's taking care of you, you're pretty much indestructible."

"So that's the same for anyone?" exclaimed Coulson.

"Yep," agreed Fallon. "I even know somebody who got flipped because the tiger had to heal so many of her injuries..." Fallon's voice trailed off when he realized he had said too much.

Coulson make the connection almost immediately. "You're talking about Alexis Castle, aren't you?"

Fallon, reluctantly, nodded again. "She got mauled by a demon during that Mayan apocalypse battle. When she healed, let's just say she *really* became a chip off the old block."

"Wow," Coulson exclaimed, amazed. "No wonder Cap's so protective of her."

Fallon was beyond ready to change the subject. "Yeah, he's probably going to try to kick me into New Jersey for what I've said already...But enough about that," he declared. "I had a private combat training session scheduled to start in a couple of minutes. You're going to take my place."

Coulson swallowed hard. "I *am*?"

"You've had some combat training, right?" asked Fallon.

Coulson nodded. "I'm just wondering...since you and I are the only ones who have the tiger's constant protection...I just don't want to hurt anybody."

"Don't worry," Fallon teased, "I'll tell my trainer to start things off slowly."

Confused, Couson followed Fallon through a door to an adjacent room. The room was small, but well padded and reinforced. The room was clearly designed for very active workout sessions.

In the middle of the room was a petite brunette with exotically asian-looking features. She reminded Coulson of a smaller version of Melinda May...and was decidely *not* the type of person he had expected to see. "Is she your combat trainer?"

Fallon nodded, grinning wickedly. "Agent Coulson, meet my wife, Ekaterina."

"Okay, what am I missing, here?" asked Coulson.

"You will see, Warrior Coulson," Katya replied, her gaze never looking up from her centered focus on a spot on the floor mat. "Shall we begin?"

Coulson looked to Fallon for silent 'permission', and Fallon nudged him into the room. "Go on," he teased. "She won't bite. I promise."

Coulson shrugged, then decided to just give in and discover what he was in store for. He approached cautiously, keeping his hands up in a defensive position, before attempting a basic punch to Katya's undefended shoulder...

He was on the ground before he knew what had happened. Katya's face hovered over his with an obvious smirk. "I thought you said he had some combat training, darling?" she asked Fallon.

"All SHIELD agents get extensive combat training," Fallon replied with a shrug. "Or at least, I *thought* so..."

Kayta knelt down and helped Coulson up to a standing position. "Don't think, Warrior Coulson," she instructed him calmly. "Just fight." Coulson nodded, and bent over to a crouch, tensing up in anticipation of Katya's opening attack.

He wasn't disappointed. Katya tackled him with the force of a freight train, knocking him on his back for the second time in seconds. "Don't think," he grunted out as he caught his breath, repeating his the words of his 'trainer' so they had a chance to sink in. "Just fight." He kipped back up to a standing position, only to notice out of the corner of his eye that Katya was about to rush him again.

It felt like he was seeing things in slow motion. Katya was moving deliberately, but at a rate that allowed him to anticipate where she was going. He stepped aside, knelt down, and laced his hands in front of his knee. When Katya stepped into his 'trap', he flung his hands into the air...taking Katya along with them.

Only when he saw the speed with which Katya hit first the ceiling, then the floor did Coulson realize that 'reality' had returned to normal speed. He raced over to Katya's side. "My God," he exclaimed, "is she okay?"

Katya didn't miss a beat, flipping Coulson over and landing him on his back for a third time. "Never inquire into the well-being of your opponent, Warrior Coulson," she ordered. "It will only give a stronger being the chance to get the drop on you."

Fallon finally decided to give Coulson a moment's peace. "Give him a break, Kat," he told his wife. "That last move was pretty good."

When Katya helped Coulson back up to a standing position, he turned to Fallon. "What happened back there? Did time slow down or something?"

Fallon nodded and mouthed a silent "ah" before shaking his head. "Time moved at the same speed it always did. But since you were moving at a speed your body's not used to yet, it took your brain some time to catch up. That's why it felt like everything was happening in slow motion. Happened to me at first, too."

"Does it still happen?" asked Coulson. He grunted as his back hit the floor, knocking the wind out of him once again.

Fallon's face filled his field of vision as his mentor grinned mischeviously. "Nope."

#

An hour later, Coulson was drenched in sweat...and wondering how his sparring partner *still* looked like she did when they first met. Finally, Katya stopped attacking and stood across from him on the opposite side of the room. "You have done well, Warrior Coulson," she complimented him. "But since I have a class to teach, we are done for now."

"Will I see you again?" asked Coulson.

"If you like," Katya agreed. "I'm free in a couple of hours...if you'd like to try again?"

Coulson nodded. "As long as you answer one question for me."

"What would you like to know, Warrior Coulson?"

"What *are* you, exactly?"

Katya turned to her husband. "Mark...you did not tell our guest what kind of a fight he was walking into?"

"I didn't want him to have any preconceptions!" Fallon exclaimed defensively. "Besides...he had started talking about himself as being a 'superhero'. I figured you could knock that thinking down a peg or two."

"Like I do for you, darling?" Katya teased.

Fallon blushed, suitably chastised. "Do you want to tell him, or shall I?"

"I will do it," Katya replied. She turned her attention back to Coulson. "I know that someone in your line of work understands that not all legends are pure fiction."

Coulson nodded. "I've met too many Asgardians."

Katya allowed herself to break into a smile...a smile wide enough to reveal a startlingly inhuman set of fangs. "Those are not the only legends to be based in a grain of truth, Warrior Coulson."

Coulson's eyes flew wide. "You're a vampire?!" When Katya nodded, Coulson turned to Fallon. "So that crack you made earlier about how she wouldn't 'bite'..."

"I survive primarily on animal blood, Warrior Coulson," Katya explained. "Human blood, for my kind, is similar to alcohol for yours. The only human blood I've had since I've been married is my husband's."

Coulson tried and failed to keep *that* particular image and all of its implications out of his head. "You do keep the tiger busy," he muttered.

"So would you still like another training session later this evening, Warrior Coulson?" asked Katya. "Now that you 'know what you are getting into'?"

Coulson thought about the fight he had just experienced. It was humbling, sure...but he had learned a great deal about what he was capable of. And he knew that if they were ever to defeat the clairvoyant, that he would need to push himself as far as the tiger spirit was willing to take him. "I would be honored, Mrs. Fallon," Coulson finally replied. "And please, call me Phil."


	11. Chapter 11

"Mistress Lièrén," Lobsang quietly admitted, "the young woman you call Skye...she is my daughter."

Beckett was glad she was sitting down. "Your *daughter*?" she asked. "I thought you said little Alexis was the first child born to a Guardian?"

"I thought that she was," Lobsang countered, "until a few moments ago." The Mùshī took a moment to get his raging nerves under control. He turned to Esposito. "I suppose you saw that Skye's mother was the daughter of a missionary in the western provinces of China?" When Esposito nodded, Lobsang continued, "that is only what her father wanted her to think." His features softened as the memories rose to the surface. "Abigail was such a radiant creature. Blindingly intelligent. The gentlest, kindest spirit I had ever met. She always seemed to know exactly how to make me laugh..."

"An empath, perhaps?" asked Beckett.

Lobsang smiled. "I suspected similar at the time. Abigail had not 'flipped', as you and your fellow Guardians have called it, but I do believe she possessed a strong sensitivity to the emotions of others."

"So what did her father do?" asked Esposito. "Why were they in China?"

Lobsang's face fell. "He was a dealer in opiates. First opium itself, then later heroin."

Beckett raised a wary eyebrow. "Someone in that business would make a great deal of money."

Lobsang nodded in agreement. "Remember, young one, this was during the height of the communist party's power. If he had flaunted his wealth, he would have been thrown out of the country...or worse, thrown in a prison to rot. No, Abigail's father was as smart as she was. He invested most of the money he made in funds for his children and kept up the pretense of missionary work by teaching his children to adhere strictly to the Christian religion..."

"Even if he wasn't all that 'Christian' himself?" asked Esposito.

Lobsang nodded again. "Abigail's devotion to her spirituality was one of the things that drew us to each other. She was fascinated by my religious beliefs, as I was with hers. She taught me English through her Bible, and we would talk from when the sun went down in the west until it rose again in the east behind us..."

Beckett suddenly frowned, confused. "Wait, you took vows of celibacy, right? And Abigail would not have believed in sex outside of marriage. So how did the two of you get to the point where you would be willing to throw those convictions away?"

Ngawang glared at his brother long enough that Beckett realized she must have opened up a long-standing wound. Lobsang blushed under his brother's withering gaze, then confessed, "When the Dalai Lama went to try to negotiate peace with the Chinese, Jamyang, Tsewang and Ngawang went with him to provide escort and help with the process. Wangchuk and I were tasked with protecting the village should negotiations fail."

"Which they did," added Esposito.

Lobsang nodded. "Wangchuk was killed in the early battles with the Chinese Army. When I watched him die, I panicked. Shut down. Closed myself off to my gifts and my brothers and ran."

"Leaving us blind and deaf for all that time," Ngawang grumbled.

Lobsang deliberately avoided his brother's gaze as he continued his story. "I wandered around the villages of western China for decades, alone and fearing for my life at every turn. Abigail treated me with kindness and respect - much more than I ever deserved. Being the only western woman in her village, she understood what it meant to be alone. In the end it felt like the only ones we could trust...the only ones we could count on...were each other. After one night where we had been talking for hours on end, crying on each other's shoulders...Abigail was one of the few women I was lucky enough to have loved. After having been alone for so very, *very* long...that love, that *connection* was far more important to me than even my vows. It may have been a grave mistake to give in to that temptation at the time, but I will never, ever regret it."

"Did you know that Abigail was pregnant?" asked Esposito.

"I did," replied Lobsang. "We were making plans to escape when Abigail's father discovered her...situation. Being such a 'religious' man, he knew he couldn't kill his daughter or the child she carried while they lived in the village, no matter how sorely tempted he was to do so. But since I was the 'heathen' who had 'defiled' his daughter..."

Beckett suspected she knew the direction Lobsang's story was headed. "He took his anger out on you."

"Or rather, his men did," Lobsang agreed. "I was 'executed' by a gunshot to the head, then my body was dismembered while Abigail was forced to watch. After my death, I did not know what became of Abigail or the child. I had simply assumed that her father's temper finally got the best of him and they both died at his hand."

"They escaped," Ngawang admitted quietly. "I do not know how they escaped, but Abigail did not die in the village of her birth. Of that much I am sure."

Lobsang squeezed his brother's shoulder, grateful for the information. "Thank you for telling me, brother."

"While I have always been disappointed by the *way* you broke your vows," Ngawang explained, "I know how much you loved the girl."

"What I still don't get," Esposito chimed in, "is why Skye is as strong as she is. Every flip we've dealt with so far has been limited in what they can do, but Skye..."

"Why are you so concerned, brother?" Lobsang asked, eager for as much information about his daughter as he could absorb.

"From what little evidence we've gathered so far," Beckett explained, "we believe that Skye may have enough power to override free will."

Tsewang's eyes went wide. "Really? That is fascinating..."

"We have no way to explain how Skye could be that powerful..." added Esposito.

"I believe I might," Tsewang countered. "Young ones, when a Guardian dies, the spirit that fuels our abilities is freed from the body and immediately begins to search for the other parts of its whole. When it merges with the living Guardians they inherit the abilities of the one who has passed on."

Beckett caught on quickly. "Would an encounter with this spirit have provided enough energy to flip Abigail?"

Tswang shook his head. "A full-grown adult woman? No, I do not believe so. However, the child of a Guardian and a potential, being exposed to that energy while still growing inside her mother's womb...yes, I believe it is entirely possible that the encounter with the spirit would have been more than enough energy to 'flip' Skye. And her abilities would have only strengthened as she grew. However, this situation is indeed so unprecedented that I am only guessing..."

Esposito's eyes lit up. Beckett couldn't help but notice the smile that was slowly creeping across her partner's face. "Espo?" she asked warily. "What are you thinking?"

"Tsewang," Esposito asked, turning his attention mostly to the Yīzhì. "What if you didn't have to guess? What if you could get the chance to examine Skye for yourself?"

Lobsang perked up, immediately sitting at attention. "What are you proposing, honored one?"

"We know that Skye has the gene, has flipped and her abilities are probably fully mature," Esposito replied to Lobsang's question before turning his attention back to Beckett. "Can you think of any reason why you shouldn't be able to bring her here, just like you bring any of us?"

Beckett shook her head, her own excitement increasing as she turned to Lobsang. "Well, brother...would you like to finally meet your daughter?"

"Nothing would please me more," Lobsang replied.


	12. Chapter 12

"So how do you want to do this?" asked Skye.

Ryan carefully studied his new student, seemingly trying to 'size her up'. The mixed emotions running across Skye's face weren't lost on him. "What's on your mind, grasshopper?"

"I'm not sure how comfortable I am with this," Skye admitted. "I mean, who am I going to practice on? And making permanent changes to someone's thoughts..."

"Let's start with me, then," Ryan suggested, a smile curling the corners of his lips. "See if you can get through this thick skull..."

Skye raised an eyebrow, unsure of what Ryan's endgame was. Finally deciding to just trust her teacher, she projected a simple command into Ryan's mind...

and nothing happened. "What is it?" asked Ryan.

"I just tried to force you to raise your right hand," Skye replied. "And you didn't do it."

"I didn't hear you, either," Ryan muttered, thinking out loud. He started to pace the room, carefully thinking through Skye's admission. A bo staff was resting on the floor from an earlier practice session, and it gave Ryan an idea. "Perhaps," he suggested, "we should start with trying to figure out what you *can't* do instead of focusing on what we already know you *can* do."

Skye flung herself to the ground as the bo staff narrowly missed hitting her in the head. She rolled over and sat up, stunned and exasperated by the sudden attack. "What the hell was that for?!" Skye exclaimed.

"I wanted to see if you could stop it," replied Ryan.

Skye's eyes widened. "Stop it?"

"Throw the staff at me," Ryan countered. Skye got up on her feet and crouched on the ground, then picked up the staff and threw it in Ryan's direction.

The staff hung weightless in the air, floating as if gravity had been temporarily suspended around it. Skye's eyes widened, amazed by what she was seeing. "How...?" She smiled as the answer came to her. "You're doing this, aren't you?"

Ryan nodded. "Wanna try again?"

Skye nodded eagerly, jumping up to a standing position and backing away from the floating staff. "What do you need me to do?"

The staff dropped back to the floor. "Picture lifting the staff off of the ground, but you're not using your arms to do it. Don't move a *muscle*. You're trying to do this with only your mind. See how you do."

Skye nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears before lacing her hands behind her back. She closed her eyes, clearing her mind in a few deep breaths, then created the mental picture as clearly as she could...

The staff rolled away from Skye, but never left the ground. "Nothing," she sighed. "Again."

"That's okay," Ryan reassured her. "Remember, we're trying to figure out what you *can't* do."

"So what next?" asked Skye.

Ryan thought about everything he had seen from Skye to that point. "I want you to try mind reading again," he suggested. "Now that we're in a calmer location than your plane." He started gently filling the room with a peaceful vibe to get his eager student to relax. "Let's sit down." Skye and Ryan sat down cross-legged across from each other on the mat. "Close your eyes," he instructed, "and clear your mind. Connect with my mind like you were trying to project into it, but keep the connection open and just *listen*. Don't look to put a thought in my head. Just tell me what you hear."

Skye followed her teacher's instructions. A moment later, she started to quietly sing. "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the tiger sleeps tonight..." Her eyes flew open as she realized the wording change was one that she did not think of on her own. "Was that you, teach?"

Ryan smiled proudly. "It's the lullaby I sing to my daughter. Good job!"

"But...I *barely* heard it," she countered. "It was like you were trying to whisper it to me from where you're sitting..."

Ryan waved off Skye's concerns. "I'm not surprised. Projection is so easy for you that if you were going to be able to read at all it was going to be much harder for you to pull off. But we can work on that." His gaze darted past Skye's; he was clearly distracted by the new thoughts that had just entered his mind. "I wonder if she's free..."

"Who?" asked Skye.

"A friend of mine," Ryan replied. "She's a master of projective telepathy. She can probably do a whole hell of a lot more for you than I can..."

A throat-clearing cough caught the attention of both teacher and student. Ryan looked over and saw Beckett and Esposito standing in the doorway. Excited anticipation was pouring off them in waves. "Guys," he asked warily, "what's going on?"

"We have an idea," Beckett replied, "about who should be training Skye."

"And it's *not* you, bro," added Esposito.

Ryan waved off the comment, not taking it the slightest bit personally. "I agree. I was just going to track down Katya..."

"It's not Katya, either," Esposito insisted.

That got Ryan's attention. He stood up before helping Skye get to a standing position. "Who are you guys thinking of?" asked Ryan.

Beckett and Esposito entered the room. Both Guardians wanted to be closer to Skye when they delivered the news. "We just found the *perfect* person to train Skye," Esposito announced.

The vagueness of the conversation and the manufactured buildup of anticipation was starting to get on Skye's nerves. "Who?!"

"Your father," Beckett replied.

Skye suddenly found herself on unsteady legs. She leaned on Ryan's arm to keep herself standing. "My father? You know who my father is?"

Ryan was starting to wonder the same thing. "Javi..." he warned, his tone implying that his fellow Guardian had better not be leading them on.

Esposito understood his partner's hesitation. "See for yourself, bro," he countered.

Ryan's eyes flew wide as he read the memories running through his partner's mind. "No way..."

Skye was starting to feel out of the loop. "So?" she asked, her tone demanding answers. "Who is he? *Where* is he?"

Beckett started to open her mouth to explain, but closed it quickly. "Have a seat," she instructed Skye. "Get comfortable."

Confused, Skye sat back down. "We're not going to see him?"

"No, we are," said Beckett. "It's just easier to take you to him than to explain the whole thing first. I have the ability to speak to the dead," she explained quickly, "and under certain circumstances, I can travel back and forth to the spirit world and take other people with me."

"So he's dead?" Skye asked, her heart sinking with disappointment.

Beckett was undeterred. "He is. That's where we're going."

"We're going to the *spirit world*?" Skye exclaimed, her eyes widening.

Beckett nodded. "Close your eyes and focus on your breathing..."

#

The change in Skye's environment jarred her. She blinked against the bright sunlight even as she enjoyed the fresh air and comfortable warmth. "Where *are* we?" she asked.

"We 'inherited' our abilities from a group of Tibetan monks," Ryan explained. "This is their temple."

Skye frowned in confusion. "I thought you said we were going to meet my father..."

"I was a monk, Skye," a voice countered behind her. "I was hardly a saint."

The deep resonant voice was strange, yet oddly familiar to Skye. She gasped when she heard it. "Is that *him*?" she asked. The three Guardians nodded. Skye turned around. "Hi," she greeted Lobsang, her voice breaking. "I'm Skye."

_Hello Skye._ Lobsang's voice echoed in Skye's mind when he didn't trust himself to physically speak. _I am Lobsang Kunchen._

Skye gasped as she recognized the telepathic connection, then frowned as she evaluated the awkward name. "Can I just call you dad?" she asked quietly.

The question broke the tension, and Lobsang laughed affectionately. "Of course," he agreed.

Relieve, Skye flung her arms around Lobsang, letting the tears flow freely. "Hi, dad," she greeted him.

"Hello, Skye," gasped Lobsang, relaxing into the embrace with his daughter. "It is so good to finally meet you."

After what felt like the shortest of eternities, Skye separated from her father's embrace as she remembered how Lobsang had initially greeted her. "You can put thoughts in people's heads? Like me?"

"Perhaps not *exactly* like you," Lobsang replied. "But yes, I can read and project."

"Like Ryan?" asked Skye, looking for clarification. When Lobsang nodded, Skye grew frustrated. "Then why am I so different?"

"You are unique, child," Wangchuk called out in response to Skye's question. "It shows up clearly in your aura."

Beckett shook her head, confused and surprised by the words of her predecessor. She then looked around Skye, 'reading' her aura for the first time herself. "Why didn't I do that sooner," she grumbled, mentally kicking herself.

"What did you see?" asked Ryan.

"Her aura's like yours without the 'dreadlocks'," Beckett explained. "Pure, unadulterated...uncontrolled energy."

"Hold up," Skye insisted, annoyed with people talking about her in the third person. "What are you guys talking about? What are you 'seeing'?"

Ryan connected between Beckett, Lobsang and Skye, allowing Skye to see what the other woman was seeing. "Each of us has a unique aura," Ryan explained. "It's directly connected to our abilities and how they work. First, look at mine and your father's."

Skye backed up a couple of steps, carefully studying what she was seeing. "It's like...it's like you're surrounded by a bunch of wires or cables," she tried to explain. "But they're glowing all sorts of different colors."

Ryan nodded. "Now close your eyes. I'll show you what Beckett sees when she looks at you. Tell me what the difference is."

Skye closed her eyes...and gasped, startled by the image that was plastered at the front of her mind. "It's like I'm looking at myself in some kind of twisted funhouse mirror," she exclaimed. "All the colors I saw in your auras, but no wires or cables. Just one big halo."

"I see that, as well," agreed Lobsang. "Brother, your description of her abilities makes so much sense now..."

"I don't follow," said Esposito.

"I believe the western expression would be that you are like a 'bull in a china shop', my dear," Wangchuk explained. "You project so easily into people's minds because all you need to do is blow energy through them."

Ryan caught on quickly. "Just before we came here, though, she was able to establish a receptive connection with me. It was weak, but it was definitely there."

Lobsang clapped his hands, proud and excited for his daughter. "That is excellent, Skye! Very good news!"

"Why?" asked Skye.

"It means your power is still able to be molded and channeled," Lobsang explained. "While the core of your power may be different than ours, you can be trained to do much more than just project thoughts."

Ryan was starting to understand why his fellow Guardians were so excited earlier. "So you can train her?" he asked his predecessor.

"If you are willing to work hard and obey everything I say, Skye," Lobsang offered. "Then yes, we can train you."

Skye nodded eagerly. "How soon can we get started?"


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** I know we're kind of stuck in the cycle of training chapters, and I promise I'll move the story along...after one more chapter of messing with Warrior Coulson :-). Sorry, I can't resist...but first, one more piece of business. In the comments, htbuzz suggested that I needed a suitably epic storyline for a Beckett-Castle "Guardian" wedding. Well, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm kicking around what I think will be a fun (although I have no idea exactly how epic yet) idea for that story. Just need to get this one done first. The tentative title for that story will give you a little hint as to what I'm planning: "Viva Las Vegas". ;-)

#

Fallon smiled with the kind of pride that can only come as a teacher watches the success of his student. "Let's take a break." He looked over at a nearby clock. "We've been going nonstop for almost an hour."

"Okay," agreed Coulson. He took the bottle of water that Fallon offered him and collapsed, leaning against a mat on the back wall. "That was an hour, huh?"

"Yeah."

Coulson leaned his head back. "Didn't feel that long...tiger thing?"

Fallon nodded. "You'll get used to it."

Coulson shook his head and smiled, marveling at how quickly he was regaining his energy. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to this..."

"I know the feeling."

The two men looked up at the sound of the female voice joining the conversation. "Miss Castle..." Coulson greeted Alexis.

Alexis cut Coulson off. "It's Crusher down here, Agent Coulson," Alexis explained.

Coulson nodded, accepting the correction. "It's good to see you again...Crusher." Out of the corner of his eye, Coulson caught the odd expression on his new mentor's face. "What?"

Alexis produced two fencing sabres from behind her back. "Phoenix asked me to come down."

Coulson jumped up and crossed the room, taking the offered sabre. He tossed the weapon lightly in the air and caught it quickly by the handle, appreciating the weapon's weight and balance. "You fence?"

"Since I was a kid," Alexis replied. "The Princess Bride was one of my favorite movies when I was little. Westley was my first crush."

Coulson saluted Alexis with the sabre. "So we're going to cross blades, then?"

"Not yet," Fallon chimed in. He jumped up from where he had been resting. "Crusher?"

Alexis held up her free hand. A long, rectangular piece of black fabric appeared, dangling from her thumb and forefinger. "As you requested, boss," Alexis replied with a smile.

Fallon took the cloth and positioned himself behind Coulson. "After your session with Kat, I figured you could use some more time against an opponent who has advantages that you don't."

"Fair enough," agreed Coulson. "What's the blindfold for?"

"You rely too much on the evidence your senses provide you and not enough on your instincts," Fallon replied.

"But doesn't the tiger spirit make up for that?" asked Coulson.

Fallon shook his head. "Normally, it would. The army just gets outright possessed because that's what tends to be best for the greater good at the time. You and I, however, are the exceptions to that rule."

"How so?"

"My relationship with the tiger spirit is more of a...partnership," explained Fallon. "I'm assuming his relationship with you is similar..."

_It is,_ the voice of the tiger spirit echoed through the room in agreement.

"Then he'll only help you as much as you *let* him help you," Fallon continued. "You could just be normal, average, everyday SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson..."

Coulson hung on Fallon's voice as his thought trailed off. "Or?"

"Or you could have every ability that my boyfriend has and more," Alexis replied.

"The choice will *always* be yours," agreed Fallon.

Coulson took a second to let Fallon and Alexis' words sink in. "What do I need to do?" he asked quietly.

The blindfold wrapped around Coulson's eyes a split second later. "The same thing Katya was telling you earlier," Fallon instructed. "Don't think. Just fight."

Coulson used the sabre to salute the room in response, then pointed the blade out in the best defensive posture he could assume without knowing the location of his opponent. _Don't think, _he thought, repeating Fallon's last words to him, _just fight._ He heard the opening swish of Alexis' sabre, dodging her attack quickly. He felt her disappear; the sensation threw him off, and he started to turn to his right and left, worrying that Alexis' next attack could come from anywhere. *Then* he started worrying about how much he was worrying. _Don't think,_ Coulson thought, repeating the words in his head like a mantra. _Don't think don't think don't think don't think don't think..._

The shift in Coulson's perceptions caught him completely by surprise. His hands and feet seemed to be moving of their own accord. Block. Dodge. Thrust. Parry. Turn. Step. Duck. Spin. Attack. The whole thing felt surreal, like he was no longer in his body, but instead was watching the fight from a position outside of himself. It felt...

Coulson ripped the blindfold off his eyes as his breath caught in his throat. His eyes darted around the room, desperately trying to find somewhere, anywhere to escape. His only way out, though, was blocked by the concerned face of his mentor. "Phil?" asked Fallon. "What is it?"

"I..." Coulson gasped out, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. "I don't know..."

Alexis recognized the symptoms immediately. "Just breathe, Phil," she cooed, dropping her sabre and rubbing Coulson's back in an attempt to be reassuring. "In and out, in and out. Don't focus wherever your head is right now. Just focus on your breathing."

"Do I need to get the Mùshī?" Fallon asked Alexis.

Coulson shook his head. "I'll be fine," he told Fallon, his words showing more confidence than the man seemed to be feeling. "Just...just give me a minute."

"What just happened?" Fallon asked. "You were doing really well for a minute..."

"I felt it, too," Coulson agreed. He swallowed hard as a knot instantly formed in the pit of his stomach. "What you were talking about. Letting the tiger take over. But then I felt like I was *outside* of my body. Watching myself drill with Alexis from a spot up on the ceiling."

Fallon nodded in understanding. "That's a good sign," he told Coulson, trying to be supportive.

Coulson shook his head, sensing a disconnect between what he was feeling and Fallon's perspective. "No, you don't understand," he argued insistently. "It felt like I was dying. *Again.*"

Alexis' eyes flew wide. "Again?" she exclaimed. "You mean you're...?"

Fallon subtly shook his head, trying to stop Alexis before she said something they would later regret. He then turned his attention back to his student...and recognized what the problem was. "You've never dealt with it, have you? How you died?"

Coulson shook his head. "There were memories...implanted in my head. Fake ones. I don't really remember my death. Just..."

"What?" asked Alexis.

"Just waking up on the table in the middle of the 'process' that was used to resurrect me. And I only remembered *that* just recently."

Alexis let out a low whistle as a horrified chill ran down her spine. "Wow," she exclaimed.

"Yeah, tell me about it," agreed Coulson.

"What has your life been like since then?" asked Alexis.

Coulson paused, thinking carefully before answering Alexis' question. "Really weird," he finally admitted. "Most of the time everything feels completely normal. Well, as normal as SHIELD gets, at any rate...I knew that I had had a 'near' death experience, or so I thought..."

"What changed?" asked Fallon.

"Centipede," Coulson replied. "Quinn's organization. They kidnapped me. Forced me to go through a procedure to get my memories back. They...they told me that the Clairvoyant wanted to find out what happened to me. Said it was the only thing he couldn't see..."

"That's not the only thing the Clairvoyant couldn't see."

The urgency in Esposito's voice caught the group's attention immediately. "What is it, Master Xiānzhī?"

"I learned how to see into the Clairvoyant's future," Esposito declared. He turned first to Coulson. "Quinn is after *both* you and Skye. He believes that if he can replicate what SHIELD did to resurrect you, that he will be able to use it to make his super-soldiers immortal." Esposito then adjusted his gaze to address his 'boss'. "Quinn then believes he can force Skye to program them to be completely loyal to him. And unless we can change how this whole thing goes down, he *and* his army are going to be here in two days."


	14. Chapter 14

The bullpen was far more crowded than usual - although two of the people in said bullpen weren't active participants in the meeting. Coulson ran straight to the corner, kneeling down next to the unconscious form of his troublesome agent-in-training. "Skye?" he asked, nudging her shoulder to try to wake her gently. He quickly grew worried, though, when Skye didn't respond. "What's wrong with her?" Coulson asked Lanie. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Esposito replied.

Coulson was confused by Esposito's confident assurance. "She's *fine*?"

Ryan nodded. "She's with Beckett. In training at the temple." Seeing that his words did nothing to reduce Coulson's confusion, he explained, "we inherited our abilities from a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks. When they died."

Coulson found himself catching on quickly. "And since the Lièrén has the ability to communicate with the dead..."

"We talk to our predecessors regularly: get advice, go for training, stuff like that."

"And that's where Skye is now? With the Lièrén?" Ryan nodded. "When will they be back?"

"Soon," Esposito replied.

Castle, Lanie and Steve filed into the room behind Fallon and Alexis. "What's going on, Phoenix?" asked Steve.

Fallon simply shrugged his shoulders before turning to Esposito. "Your show, General. Want to tell us what you saw?"

"General?" Coulson mouthed to Ryan, confused by the reference.

"Long story," Ryan mouthed back in reply.

Esposito ignored them. "Quinn tracked Skye through most of her childhood. He's wanted her since he first learned about her abilities."

"Why did he stop tracking her?" asked Coulson.

"The plan to protect Skye worked better than anyone could have known," Esposito replied. "Because she was never in one place long enough to form close relationships, her abilities atrophied from lack of practice. When they went into hibernation Quinn moved on to other projects."

"But now that her abilities are back..." Coulson continued.

Esposito nodded. "He wants her again. Now, more than ever."

Castle frowned, confused. "But how could Quinn track Skye *here*? The spell I wrote to protect this place..."

"Works perfectly," Esposito countered. "Don't ask me how, but he tracked Skye to the *temple*. Not here."

Lanie's eyes widened. "The temple?! How?"

"Told you not to ask me that," Esposito grumbled.

Ryan swallowed hard, not wanting to go where his thoughts were headed. "Can Quinn *get* to the temple?"

Esposito shook his head. "Nah bro, don't worry. Lobsang and Tsewang have the place covered. The problem, though, will come when Skye gets back."

"He's going to follow her here," Ryan completed his partner's thought. "To us."

Esposito nodded. "As close as he can get, then use his boys to ground search the neighborhood from there. That's why we have two days and not two hours."

A groan from the corner of the room interrupted the meeting. Coulson raced over to his ally and protege. "Skye?" he asked. "Are you all right?"

"AC?" Skye greeted her 'boss' with a groggy moan. "Are we back in the warehouse?"

Coulson nodded. "Yeah."

Esposito passed over Skye and turned to directly address his partner. "Some problems have come up while you two were gone."

To everyone's surprise, Skye was the one who spoke first. "Bring me up to speed," she ordered.

Fallon looked to Beckett, who nodded her approval. Accepting the nod as a direct order, Fallon then nudged Esposito, who summarized his vision. "Quinn followed you guys back from the temple, Skye. He's coming for you. We got two days."

Skye drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a quiet sigh. "So what's the plan?" she asked calmly.

"We take the fight to Quinn," Ryan replied, suddenly inspired.

That moment of inspiration confused Coulson. "How?" he asked, eyes wide. "We have no idea where he is."

"We don't know *yet*," Ryan argued. "But I think I know how we can find him."

"How?" asked Castle.

"By using his own trick against him," Ryan replied. He turned his focus entirely to his partner. "You know how, when you read Skye, you thought Quinn was looking directly at you?" When Esposito nodded, Ryan continued his explanation. "If Quinn's actual presence is in Skye's memories, and not just her memory of his presence...I think I might be able to connect to it."

Esposito caught on immediately. "And if you can connect to it, you can double-back through it..."

"And use the link to trace his location," Ryan completed the thought.

Esposito turned to Skye. "What do you think, kid? Want to try it?" Skye nodded, silently forcing her fatigued body to get up off the floor and sit in a chair next to Ryan and Esposito's desks.

The connection jerked to life when Ryan and Esposito joined hands with Skye, completing the circuit. Coulson watched nervously as the trio shook with the effort they were putting into their task. Finally, when he could stand to watch no longer, Coulson opened his mouth to protest...only to close it when three pairs of eyes flew open. The group announced their discovery as one. "We know where he is. Pioneer, Tennessee."

"I know where that is," Lanie exclaimed. "It's right in the middle of the Smoky Mountains."

"Good spot to hide," agreed Steve. "Sparsely populated, easy to conceal anything covert underground. Hydra used similar tactics."

"Only Quinn is doing this on *our* soil," insisted Fallon. "And we need to stop him *now*. Master Xiānzhī, how have we lined up with your vision so far?"

Esposito shook his head. "We've already split off from it. But my gut says we only have a window of about twelve hours we can use to pull off any attack before Quinn brings the fight to us."

"We can't let that happen," Fallon declared, "there would be far too much potential for collateral damage I'm not willing to risk."

"But how can we bring the fight to Quinn?" Coulson argued. "Even if we're sure about what the Clairvoyant's next move is, how do we know he doesn't know what we're planning? Or that he'll be able to see us coming? We'll be walking into a trap."

"No, we won't," Skye declared.

Her confidence surprised Coulson. "How can you be so sure?"

Ryan's head snapped up in a gesture that seemed to respond to Coulson's question. The Mùshī's reaction, though, was to turn to Skye. "Is that...is that *you*? Are you doing that, grasshopper?"

Skye smiled broadly. "A little something my dad taught me," she replied.

Ryan and Coulson's eyes both went wide. "Your *father*?!" exclaimed Coulson.

At the same time, Ryan asked, "can you teach that to me when this is over?"

"What is she doing?" Alexis asked Ryan.

"Some sort of...telepathic cone of silence," Ryan replied. "Outside of this room I can't read *anything*. Not a single being. First time that's ever happened."

"I like to think of it as more of a 'shield', personally," Skye teased. When she got the smirk she was hoping to see out of her 'boss', Skye then continued, "but if what my father told me is right, then the Clairvoyant won't be able to sense anyone under my protection. He'll never see us coming."

Ryan shook his head in amazement. "I'd buy that," he agreed. "If I can't hear out, no one else should be able to hear in here, either. I'd have to verify that with Katya to be completely sure, though."

Fallon, for his part, seemed to be satisfied with Ryan's expertise. He turned to Esposito. "Tell Claire to start making the calls. Get as many people to help as you can. We'll leave with as many men as we can gather in three hours."

#

With the Guardians tied up on the phone, Coulson took advantage of the opportunity to talk to Skye. "Did you say you your *father* taught you that trick with the shield?"

Skye's eyes lit up with an exuberance Coulson hadn't seen since before Ian Quinn had shot her. "I know, right? My dad was a *superhero*! How cool is that?!"

"So are *you* now, apparently," Coulson agreed.

Skye's face fell as the implications of Coulson's statement hit her full force. "The 084 thing?"

Coulson nodded. "You know SHIELD is going to want to know. Now that we know."

Terror shot through Skye's being. "You're not going to tell them, are you?"

Coulson's gaze fell from his eye contact with Skye. A purring sound rumbled in the back of his mind, reminding him that Skye wasn't the only one at risk anymore. "If I tell them about you I'd have to tell them about me, too," he admitted.

Skye's eyes widened as her mind flashed back to watching her 'boss' take off at superhuman speed. "So that was all you earlier, huh?"

Coulson blushed as he reluctantly nodded. "That's not even the half of it."

"So what are you going to do?" asked Skye.

Coulson let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Honestly? I don't know," he admitted. "I've already been a lab experiment once. I'm not really interested in going through that again."

"Yeah, me neither," Skye added.

"Okay," Coulson finally declared decisively, "we know the Clairvoyant murdered your mother, and this might be our best chance to get him. So...one step at a time? We'll figure out what we're going to do about SHIELD once we take down Quinn?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Skye noticed the last Network member hang up the phone. "Okay," she agreed. "One step at a time."


	15. Chapter 15

Simmons looked around at the unfamiliar agents puttering around the bus. *Her* bus. Maybe it was because it was her first field assignment, but Gemma had come to feel very possessive about the plane that was quickly starting to seem like her home. So to have so many strangers around...it rankled her. She looked across the table at her lab partner, surrogate 'brother' and best friend. "Doesn't this bother you?" she asked Fitz.

"What?" Fitz asked, never looking up from his work.

Simmons turned to her right, then her left, as if looking for the invisible microphones she worried were listening to her every word. "The idea that we can be loaned out from one agent to another like we're a...cocktail dress? You're okay with that?"

"We're soldiers, Gemma," Fitz replied calmly. "We follow orders. Just like May; just like Ward..."

Simmons' eyes widened as she recognized the source of the recent changes she had noticed in her partner. "That's it, isn't it?!" she exclaimed in a harsh whisper. "You've developed some sort of man-crush on Agent Ward, and because of that you're trying to become like him or something..."

That got the first rise out of Fitz that Simmons had seen in days. "I do *not* have a man-crush on Agent *Ward*..." he growled.

The agent in question cleared his throat at the entranceway to the lab. The scientists looked up to see Agents Garrett and Ward watching them. While Ward was clearly blushing, Garrett simply trained his eye on the pair with a mischevious half-smile. "You two girls done working on my new truth serum yet?" he asked Fitz.

"It's in the centrifuge," Simmons replied. "It will be ready in about five minutes."

Garrett nodded, then pulled out his cell phone when the device buzzed for his attention. All traces of emotion fell off his face as he read the new information that his phone had presented him. "Agent Fitz," he ordered. "I need you to track down the source of this text."

Fitz took the phone that Garrett was offering him. "Quinn, Pioneer, Tennessee?" he asked, reading the text off the phone. "What does that mean?"

"Pioneer, Tennessee," Ward mused, repeating the last two words of the text. His expression lit up as an idea popped into his head. "Can you bring up a map of the state?" he asked Simmons.

When the map appeared in the empty air above the table, it was clear to everyone what Ward's idea had been. "Pioneer is a town," Simmons exclaimed.

"In the middle of nowhere," Garrett agreed. "And surrounded by mountains, unless I miss my guess..." Simmons changed the map to a topographical view of the region, confirming Garrett's theory and making him even more determined to find the source of the message that had led them to that location. "Anything, Fitz?"

Fitz shook his head. "The message has been re-routed through about a dozen servers to start. Whoever sent this doesn't want us to know where they sent it from. Skye could probably figure it out..."

"Could *Skye* have been the one to send the message, perhaps?" asked Simmons. "Perhaps she and Agent Coulson want us to bring Quinn there for some reason?"

"Why don't we ask the man himself?" suggested Garrett.

"Agent *Coulson*?" asked Simmons, clearly confused.

Garrett shook his head. "Nope. If this text has something to do with our friend Mr. Quinn, perhaps he'll be able to give us some sort of clue as to what that something might be."

#

Ian Quinn looked up as the door to his holding cell opened. The blood dripping down from the gash over his eye had crusted over as he slept, making opening his eyelids an awkward and uncomfortable process. "Hey," he cracked, "do you think one of your minions could possibly come in here with a washcloth or something like that? I'd hate for the ladies to see me looking like this..."

Ward smacked Quinn across the face, earning the man's silence. Garrett took advantage of the shock to get straight to the point. "Ian," he asked, "what's in Pioneer, Tennessee?"

Quinn's face paled for a split second before he regained his composure. "Dollywood, maybe?" he teased. "Oooh, what about Little House on the Prarie?"

Garrett ignored Quinn's attempts at further wise-cracking, going straight to the intercom once he and Ward left the cell. "Agent May," he ordered, "set our course for Pioneer, Tennessee. Let me know the second we get there."

The resolute determination in his old boss' voice surprised Ward. "Sir?" he asked, confused.

"Did you see that look on Quinn's face, Grant?" Garrett asked.

"I'm not following, sir," Ward countered.

"Whatever's going on in Pioneer, Tennessee, it was obvious that Quinn never, *ever* expected one of us to say those two words to him in the same sentence."

Ward was starting to catch on. "Which is why we need to go there and find out what Quinn was so sure we would never get the chance to see."

Garrett smirked mischeviously. "Exactly."

#

"There," Ryan declared decisively, pointing to a spot on the electronic wall. "Quinn's hideout is right there."

Fallon stretched his hands across the wall, zooming in on the spot that Ryan pointed to. "It's a *mansion*," he told the group. Katya glared at her husband, annoyed at his announcement of what seemed to be obvious. "I'm just saying that it's a bigger place than I was expecting to see on the satellite view..."

"It's just the tip of the iceberg, I assure you," Coulson chimed in. "If that's Centipede's home base then I can guarantee that the building is three times that size below ground."

"And how many people will be in the building?" asked Fallon.

"A couple'a hundred," Esposito replied. "Probably half of them super-soldiers."

Skye's eyes widened. "A *hundred* super-soldiers?" she exclaimed. "You guys are *sure* you can handle that many?"

Esposito shrugged. "We've seen worse."

"A *lot* worse," Ryan agreed.

"How many guys are coming with us?" asked Skye.

Fallon turned to his wife for the answer. "We have thirty men," she replied. "Most of them my best black belts."

Skye was starting to feel a little light-headed. "*Thirty* men?! And you guys are just counting on my shield to give you the upper hand? Against *that* many super soldiers?!"

"We *are* counting on your shield, Skye," said Beckett. "But it's not our only advantage..."

Coulson held up a hand to silence the rest of the room, knowing that any further reassurances were likely to fall on deaf ears. "Do you trust me, Skye?" he asked quietly.

"You know I do," Skye replied.

"Then trust me *now*," Coulson insisted, squeezing Skye's hand. "If the Guardians say they can handle this, they can handle it."

Skye sighed, but reluctantly nodded. "Okay."

"What kind of weapons should we expect?" asked Castle.

"Anything," Coulson replied. "Up to and including major explosives and experimental weaponry."

"Noted," said Castle.

Fallon continued to closely study the map. "Master Sìfāng?" he asked Castle. "Where should we meet up?"

Castle shifted his attention fully to the wall. "There," he directed, pointing out a nearby clearing. "Should have more than enough space, and is concealed far enough away for any guards to not be able to see us."

Fallon seemed to be satisfied with their level of preparation. "Then it seems we're ready to go," he declared.

Skye's heart suddenly started to race. "That means I'm up, right?"

Fallon nodded. "Would it help to meet the guys you're going to be protecting?"

"Yeah," Skye agreed, her voice shaking from nerves. "Yeah, it would."

Fallon stepped aside, clearing the way for Katya to lead Skye out of the conference room and into a nearby exercise room. Skye gasped, surprised by the scene in front of her. The thirty people standing at attention ran the gamut: men and women both, some of whom looked older than Coulson and others who looked like they still had a year or two before graduating high school. Skye walked the three rows of 'soldiers', shaking hands and trying to imprint every face into her memory as she went.

When she finally got to the last being, though, Skye relaxed, finally trusting that the last of the 'soldiers' in the room could easily handle fighting off more than one of the super-soldiers on his own. If the rumors were true, at any rate. "It's so good to see you here...Yoda," Skye greeted her friend.

Bruce shared Skye's smile, hoping his sincerity would help to fight off Skye's obvious case of nerves. "Are you kidding?" he teased. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

Someone else in the room also noticed how nervous Skye was getting. _Breathe, Skye, _Ryan's voice echoed through the young woman's mind. _You know you can do this...but it'll be a lot harder if you let your nerves get in the way._

Skye nodded, silently accepting Ryan's instruction. A core of peaceful energy came to life within Skye's being, and she grabbed onto it like a lifeline, waiting for what seemed like an eternity until her heartbeat slowed down to a speed approaching normal. She then pictured that energy rising out from the top of her head, spreading throughout the room. When the energy floated down, covering each and every person going to fight for her freedom, Skye opened her eyes and turned to Fallon. "It's done. We're ready."

The room emptied a split second later.


	16. Chapter 16

Skye stumbled on the uneven ground almost as soon as the group landed. Ryan caught her before she was able to fall. "Easy there, grasshopper," he teased with a smile. "Wouldn't want you to be a casualty before the battle actually begins..."

"We're *there*?!" Skye gasped, a nervous lump forming in her throat. Ryan nodded.

Fallon took the lead. "Mistress Lièrén," he asked. "Which way?"

Beckett opened up her hearing to orient herself to their prey, turning in almost a full circle until the location of their enemy revealed itself to her. "This way," she finally announced, taking the lead.

Skye watched slack-jawed as almost everyone she had just met took off with the speed she had only previously attributed to her mentor. "Wait..." she exclaimed. "They...they can *all* do that?"

"Yep," Ryan chuckled. "They can all do that."

"I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only one who *can't* do that," Skye grumbled.

Ryan chuckled. "Come on," he told her. "We'll catch up to them."

Skye tugged on Ryan's arm, trying to stress the potential urgency of the thoughts that were running through her mind. "You don't understand. I don't know how long the shield will last. I need to be there to refresh it if it conks out. We'll never 'catch up' to them in time."

Ryan didn't respond to Skye's worries. He simply offered her his back. "Hop on."

"Hop on?" asked Skye.

When Ryan nodded, Skye gave in and climbed up onto his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. "Don't worry," Ryan reassured her with a confident smile. "We'll catch up."

If she hadn't seen almost three dozen people just run away from her at the speed they were moving, Skye would never have believed that any human being could move at the speed they were moving - not to mention move at that speed while carrying another human being on their back. She wanted to scream...but stifled the urge when she worried that the sound would alert the bad guys to their presence.

The ride was over mere seconds later. She stopped, frozen in place, in the middle of a scene that felt like a war movie. Bullets whizzed by at what felt like mere inches from her head. Some of the members of her 'army' were actively engaged in shootouts; others were in fist fights. The Sìfāng's shields absorbed every single one of the enemy's bullets and blaster shots. The impacts rippled with blue energy like hail pellets cascading into an electric blue pond that was splashing the power freely around her. All of the army fighters looked like they were making spectacular amounts of progress...

Right until the time that Ryan pulled Skye down to hide behind a fallen tree trunk. "You gotta be careful there, grasshopper," he teased with a chuckle. "I have no idea if Castle's got a shield on you..."

"They..." Skye stammered, "how are they doing this? Centipede's soliders are all super genetically enhanced..."

"It's a long story," Ryan replied. "You should get your boss to tell it to you sometime."

"If we all get out of here?" Skye asked nervously.

Ryan smiled broadly, his entire being radiating a supreme confidence. "Just keep your shield up," he replied. "The less Quinn knows about our moves the better."

Skye nodded, deliberately forcing herself to set aside her raging emotions and do the job she was born to do.

#

_Don't think,_ Coulson told himself. _Just fight._

The agent knew he was probably handicapping the tiger spirit by not giving him total control of the situation, and yet...he had never felt so free in his life. His previous encounters with Centipede's super-soldiers had been terrifying experiences where his training had to fight not only his opponent, but Coulson's own fears. Now, though...this felt like when he had had to face down the schoolyard bullies as a child.

Only this time, *he* was the one with the power.

Coulson plowed through opponent after opponent. Most of them were so easy to defeat that Coulson found himself knocking most of them out with his bare hands. The soldiers who had been foolish enough to come at him with bullets were taken down in seconds, usually with precision shots to the knee when his eyes were working in slow motion. A few bullets somehow made it to Coulson, hitting him in the arm and the leg. One even grazed his head, the shot avoiding being a fatal wound by mere inches. The wounds healed instantly as Coulson's supernaturally charged cells pushed the bullets out of his body.

He could *really* get used to this.

Whenever he was tempted to stop, even for the slightest of moments, Coulson looked to his right, then his left...and watched his fellow warriors at work. Regular men and women who should never have been put in that position, yet volunteered to put themselves in harm's way to protect their friends and their families. To help him. To protect Skye. Coulson wanted to thank all of them for their sacrifice, knowing that the time and effort they put in to prepare for this night could not have been easy for any of them.

But he also knew that he didn't need to thank anybody, because whatever gods were watching over them had sent the tiger spirit to back all of them up: the fiercest of all warriors who fought alongside them, ahead of them, behind them and through them. He healed them, watched over them and protected them. He kept up their energy, gave them strength to fight strength and speed to dodge experience and bullets. Even if only for this one night, the men and women who were fighting at Coulson's side shared that spirit with him. For this night, they were the brothers and sisters Coulson had never been lucky enough to have.

With one exception.

Coulson felt and sensed Fallon's location before he was ever able to pinpoint it. The strength of their shared connection to the tiger spirit drew him like a beacon; no matter how many Centipede soldiers were surrounding him, Phil Coulson knew with absolute clarity exactly where Mark Fallon was and what he was doing during the entire battle. He now had a brother for life, of that much Coulson was sure.

And now, it was time to follow his brother's lead.

Surrounded on all sides by a half-dozen Centipede super-soldiers, Coulson finally gave himself fully to the power of the tiger spirit coursing through his being.

The first two soldiers went down with lightning-fast strikes to the bridge of the nose.  
The second two had their necks snapped before they had the chance to launch a single punch.  
And the final two soldiers lost their lives when their a single superpowered leg sweep send their skulls crashing into the concrete stairs behind them.

When Coulson returned to his senses, the scene around him was one of carnage. But after he took a quick head count of his allies, the carnage mixed effortlessly with relief and a powerful rush of adrenaline.

The three dozen of them had just taken down a hundred Centipede super-soliders. Without a single casualty. "Skye!" Coulson yelled, his voice echoing down the hill as if it were rolling on a stone.

Skye jumped up from behind the fallen tree trunk like the piece of wood was about to roll over on top of her. "Yeah?" she yelled back, following her boss' lead.

"Lift the shield," Coulson ordered at the top of his lungs. "It's time for our enemy to know who's coming for him."


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:** Just watched End of the Beginning. Don't get me wrong, I do love my Whedonverse shows and I still think AoS has great potential - but this "Uprising" arc is already starting to disappoint me. My crazy little AU will _stay_ AU, thank you very much. I might cherry pick future fun and games from this story arc and Winter Soldier to use when appropriate (like in a future sequel), but for now, my story line will not change to align with the show where it stands. If you guys want to stay on this little adventure with me to this story's end, you're most welcome. :-)

#

The SHIELD agent caught up to his spirit-brother and the Guardians at the door to the mansion. "Well," Fallon asked the group, "which way from here?"

"Coulson was right about one thing," Ryan declared. "There's at least ten subfloors to this building. And there's people on every one of them."

"More good news," grumbled Fallon. "Any idea how many more of *these* guys we should expect to run into?"

"Less than a dozen," replied Esposito. "One or two posted on guard duty on each floor."

Fallon looked at the makeup of his group compared to the anticipated threat. "You mentioned something about the place potentially being booby-trapped?" he asked Coulson.

"I'd count on it," Coulson agreed.

Fallon turned to Ryan and Esposito. "Think we should send away the 'non-essential personnel?'"

Ryan nodded, and turned to his left. The tiger spirit's snow-white counterpart appeared and bowed before his master. _How may I serve you, my Lord? _he asked.

"The army is no longer needed today," Ryan told the tiger. "And the next stage of the mission might put them in unnecessary danger. Release them with our unending gratitude and send them home."

The tiger spirit bowed deeper as he accepted his commission. _As you wish, my Lord,_ he replied. The spirit then turned to Castle. _May we work in concert, Master Sìfāng?_ When Castle nodded, the spirit exploded into thirty white balls of energy. The wizard 'blessed' the balls of energy with a second gentle nod before they took off toward their targets.

Skye watched in horror as each ball of energy hit one of the members of the army. Each 'soldier' shook their head to clear out the mental cobwebs, seemingly regaining their awareness for only a moment...before they disappeared. "Are they...are they *dead*?" she gasped. "Did you kill them?"

Ryan shook his head. "No, no! Castle just sent them home."

"Oh," Skye exclaimed, trying and failing to wrap her head around what she had just seen.

Ryan sensed her unease. "None of us can use our abilities to kill, Skye," he reassured her. "*Ever.*"

Feeling moderately better, Skye surveyed the group to see who was considered to be 'essential personnel'. "Still a lot of people here," she mused. "Sure we want to travel as a group?"

Fallon recognized that Skye had a point. "Is your shield down?"

Skye nodded. "At this point, we should assume he knows we're here."

"So will he try to escape up or down?" Fallon asked Coulson and Esposito.

Castle answered Fallon's question by getting down on one knee and touching the cement beneath his feet. A rumbling beneath everyone's feet told the group that the wizard had to be casting some sort of spell. When the rumbling stopped, Castle stood on both feet once again. "If there's any way for the Clairvoyant to escape from underneath us, it's now blocked. The only way he can go is up."

"Unless he blows us up before we get to him," Skye muttered.

"Bomb disposal first, then," Fallon declared, agreeing with Skye's assessment. "Let's split up for now." Fallon turned to Coulson. "I'll take Angel, Crusher, Cap and Master Xiānzhī. We'll head up to look for traps above ground. You'll take everyone else and head down?"

Coulson nodded. "How will we keep in contact?"

_I'll be in everyone's head the whole time, _Ryan projected through the group mind-link.

_And we can talk to each other this way?_ thought Coulson. When the group's heads nodded almost as one, he had his answer. _Okay then._

"If you need any help or find the Clairvoyant, the wizards will bring the two teams back together," Fallon instructed the group. "Good luck, everyone." He then grabbed Coulson's arm, staring into the man's eyes with a sincere concern. "Be *careful*," he warned.

Accepting the instruction and understanding the emotion behind it, Coulson nodded.

Fallon opened the door, taking the lead going up the staircase and expecting his team to follow him. When Esposito took up the rear, Coulson led his team further down the hallway. "Stairs to the left..." suggested Coulson.

"Wait!" Beckett stopped the group, holding back Coulson's lead. "Castle, look down by Coulson's foot."

Castle recognized the problem immediately. "Can you put your hand on the wall?" he asked Beckett. She did as asked without question. Castle reached through himself deeply into the connection he shared as Beckett's soulmate. "Open your touch for me? I don't want to have to force us to walk through ten sub-levels in the dark..."

The subtle 'zap' of a now-fried wire was the only indication that anything had happened. "What did you guys just do?" asked Skye.

"Your boss was about to bumble his way through a laser trip wire," Beckett teased.

"So we stopped it," Castle added.

Skye shook her head in amazement. "Wow..." she exclaimed.

Coulson nodded to show his gratitude. Then he snapped back to his focus on the mission. "You'll keep your senses open for any more traps?" he asked Beckett. "I doubt that'll be the last one." When Beckett nodded, Coulson took a hesitant step forward. He sighed briefly with relief that the trap had, indeed, been cleared, then pushed on. "Let's go."

The stairwell opened into a large research lab, full of at least three scientists looking to be hard at work...and seemingly oblivious to the battle that had just raged over their heads. _How are we supposed to get through that lab without attracting attention?_ thought Skye.

An image flashed through Skye's mind that was not her own: a lab, similar in size to the one they were just outside of...but with every lab-coat either collapsed on the floor or slumped over their work table. Skye backed into the wall, shocked by the scene. _You guys didn't..._

_The Mùshī and I merely 'encouraged' them to sleep, child,_ Katya's voice rang through the group mind-link. _I suggest you do the same._

Skye opened her mouth to ask how Katya was able to do such a thing...until her being nearly gagged on the thought as the answer came to her. _Angel...you're like me?!_

_In some ways,_ Katya replied enigmatically. _Now focus, child. Your team cannot stay in that stairwell all day._

Skye nodded and turned toward the door. She let her thoughts project out through, she hoped, the length of the room. Her mind carried only one word on that projection: _sleep_. Skye opened the door a crack to check the progress of her gift, then, with a mixture of surprise and satisfaction, opened the door to let the rest of her team come through. "Clear," she whispered.

Coulson walked through the door and let out a low whistle, clearly impressed. "You did this?" Skye nodded. "How long will they stay asleep?"

"Six to eight hours, I'm guessing," Skye replied with a shrug, trying to 'act casual' about the whole thing. "Unless I wake them up before then."

Coulson was starting to feel an almost fatherly sense of pride toward his young protege. "Nice work."

"Thanks," Skye accepted the compliment with a beaming smile before she and Coulson ran to catch up with the rest of their team.


	18. Chapter 18

They seemed to fall into a routine pretty quickly: go down one floor, have Skye knock out the 'normals' on the other side of the door, then have someone (usually Bruce) take out any super-guards before they were able to sound an alarm to warn the rest of Centipede to their presence. "This seems too easy," Skye insisted as Coulson opened the door to the stairwell.

"You worry too much," teased Coulson.

The fifth floor began the same way the previous floors had; Skye peeked out of a crack in the door to survey the scene, then projected her 'spell' across the floor.

Beckett stretched her hearing to confirm that the sleep projection had worked. "Clear," she announced.

They filed into a lab that was bigger and more high-tech than any of the others that they had seen to that point. Castle scanned the area around him as they went, his active mind trying and failing to piece together what he was seeing. "What are they *working* on down here?" he asked.

"Creating the ultimate super-soldier," answered Coulson. "The guys we've been fighting have been the failed attempts."

Castle's eyes flew wide. "*Failed* attempts?" he exclaimed. "We haven't met the latest version yet?!"

Skye's breath caught in her throat. "I think we might have just found him."

The group cautiously approached the operating table that Skye was staring at. It was taking all of Bruce's control to not feel the emotions rolling off the younger woman in waves. "You know him, don't you?"

Skye wiped tears away from her eyes as she nodded. "His name's Mike Peterson. He's a friend of mine...was a friend of mine..."

The hum of a laser told Coulson that Skye's projection had stopped Peterson's doctors in the middle of some sort of procedure. "Doctor Banner?" he asked Bruce. "Can you turn that off, please?"

Bruce found the power switch for the laser unit and shut it off, then pulled the unit out of the ceiling in a shower of angry sparks and threw it aside.

Skye ignored the noise, unable as she was to take her gaze off of the severe scarring on her friend's face. "What did they do to him?" she asked, choking back a sob.

"Judging from what I can see of his injuries," Bruce seethed, "he either died or almost died. The tech is what these SOBs are using to keep him alive."

"And under their control," added Coulson. For the Guardians, he explained, "the Clairvoyant implants a special chip in the brains of his super-soldiers. They're given orders through the chip and if they don't obey, he sends an electric pulse into the chip that kills them instantly."

"The explosion?" Skye asked Coulson.

Coulson nodded. "That would be my guess," he agreed.

"God, Mike," Skye whispered using one hand to wipe tears away from her eyes as she used her other hand to gently caress the scars on Mike's cheek. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry..."

Mike ripped the restraints off his wrists, grabbing Skye's hand and twisting it at an painful and unnatural angle. His other hand slipped between Skye's legs. He sat up and lifted Skye up over his head. Peterson threw Skye across the room, breaking shelves, beakers and computers as she went until she hit the opposite wall and dropped, unconscious, to the floor. He scanned the room and sized up his opponents - only one of whom he recognized. "Coulson," he spat angrily, breathing out the word as more of a threat than a greeting.

Coulson faced Peterson in a defensive crouch. "Mike," he warned. "You don't have to do this."

"NO!" Mike screamed. "You abandoned me to these people, 'Agent' Coulson! Believe me, I *want* to do this."

He raised his arm, pointing a closed fist at Coulson. The metal sleeve on his arm expanded to show a miniature rocket launcher. Coulson dove to the side once the rocket launched, away from where he knew Skye had collapsed. He was safely underneath a lab table when the rocket exploded behind him; the tiger rolled him safely out of the way of the path of the blast.

Bruce took Peterson's metal arm and forced it to a safe position behind the super-solider's back. Peterson twisted his metal leg, lifting his foot until it was between Banner's legs, and with a swift kick pushed Banner away from him and through the lab doors behind him. Banner shoved the debris away from his body and stood up, his eyes glowing green as he growled, "this guy is really starting to piss me off..."

Ryan stepped away from the chaos of the gang fight and tried to open his mind, determined to connect with Peterson and find out what was driving his fury. He failed. "There's too much interference," he called out to Castle over the sounds of Peterson fighting Coulson, Beckett and Banner. "I can't reach him."

Castle threw up shields to protect his team even as he tried to fling energy bolts at the cybernetic super-solder. Peterson moved quick enough to keep from getting directly hit by the blasts but not quick enough to protect his extremities; his hands and human leg twitched from the impacts, even though he pushed on, seemingly unable to feel the attacks on his body.

And then, all of a sudden...the attacks just stopped. Mike Peterson seemed anchored to his spot, unable to move save for the twitching in his hands and feet. Castle took the opportunity to cast a full containment shield around the super-soldier, then Coulson pointed his pistol at their prisoner's head.

"Put the gun down, AC," Skye declared weakly.

The attention of the group shifted away from Peterson and toward the one person that they had not expected to hear from. "Skye?" Coulson asked. He swallowed hard at the sight of her injuries, trying and failing to not flash back to one of the worst days of his life. "Are you...?"

Skye ignored her mentor. Her attention was completely and exclusively focused on her former friend. "You don't have to do this, Mike. We can help you. Make you better. Get you back with your son."

"No," Mike exclaimed, his voice shaking from anger and disbelief. "It's too late for that now. I...I can't..."

"You *can*," Skye argued. "You're a *good* man, Mike."

The power of Skye's gift pushed past all of the technology and pain in Mike's head. "I'm a g-g-good man," he stammered, weakly and slowly.

"You don't have to fight. You don't have to kill."

"Don't have to fight," Mike repeated blankly. "Don't have to kill."

"You don't have to serve the Clairvoyant anymore..."

Skye's last words broke her hold on Mike as fear overwhelmed him. "No! You don't understand. I'm not in control anymore. *He* is. If I don't do everything he says, he'll...he'll kill me. I'm surprised he hasn't already."

"That's because of this," insisted Skye. She poked a finger at the shield surrounding Peterson, setting off a ripple of blue energy from the spot. "Mike, these people...these people can do things that nobody else in the world can do. They healed me when I should have died. They showed me things I never would have believed before. They're protecting you from the Clairvoyant even now. They can get that chip out of your head. I promise you, they can help you get your life back. They may be the *only* ones that can help you get your life back."

Mike's face fell. He leaned back against the shield in surrender, only to jump back when the energy of the shield shocked him back to attention. When the sting of the shock passed, he turned his attention back to Skye. "But I just tried to kill them. To kill *you*," he insisted quietly. "Why would they want to help me anymore?"

"Because that's what they *do*," Skye countered. She turned to talk to Castle. "Can you and Yoda here take Mike back to the Yīzhì? Can she help him like she helped me?"

Coulson saw the determination on Skye's face and knew that he couldn't just say no to her outright. "I vote we bring everyone down here," he suggested. "I know what I would do, but he would be going to your house, not mine. It should be your call."

The instant arrival of four new faces in the lab stunned Mike to his core. "How...did I just see what I think I saw?"

"Told ya," Skye replied with a smile.

Fallon took in the situation, quickly recognizing the shield around the man in the middle of the room - and the ruins surrounding him that probably necessitated the casting of said shield. "Is he...?" Fallon asked Coulson.

Skye shook her head. "This is not the Clairvoyant. This is my friend Mike Peterson. He's a *victim* of the Clairvoyant. I'd like to see him get treatment for his injuries..."

"What kind of treatment?" asked Esposito, his being radiating a defensiveness that showed he was on high alert.

Skye didn't back down. "The same kind of treatment that saved me," she insisted, knowing that Esposito would recognize exactly what that meant.

Esposito realized he didn't have nearly enough information on the situation surrounding him. "I need instant replay. What about you guys?"

Mike watched the heads around the room nod in agreement, frowning when he realized that he might be the only one in the room who didn't understand the meaning behind the reference. "Instant replay?"

"Quiet," Skye ordered him.

Once the memories of the fight replayed through the minds of everyone in the group, their opinions on Mike's fate became decidedly more conflicted. "Not a chance in hell," declared Esposito. "There's no way we should let that...that *thing* into the warehouse."

Alexis was on the other side of the matter. "But what if your wife can help him?" she argued. "He's got a son. Wouldn't you want someone to help your father if your father was in his shoes..."

"My father wouldn't have been stupid enough to *get* into his shoes," Esposito growled.

"You've *seen* Oz!" Skye countered, knowing that Esposito had a copy of her memories of the child. "You mean to tell me that you can look at the face of that sweet little boy and *choose* to take his father away from him?!"

Esposito gawked at the group, dumbfounded at why no one else seemed to be on his side. "This...thing is *not* Oz's father!" he argued. "Not anymore!"

"Pull his memories!" Skye argued back. "He's saved people's lives. He fought for our country. He joined SHIELD to *help* people..."

"ENOUGH!" Fallon yelled. "I don't do this very often, but 'technically' I'm the boss here and I'm gonna pull rank for once. We don't have time for this." He turned to Castle. "Can you keep this shield up *as* you transport him to the warehouse?"

Castle nodded. "Not a problem."

"Then I see no reason not to take Mr. Peterson here to the warehouse and give him the chance to get his normal life back." Fallon pushed his way through until he was directly on the opposite side of the shield from the subject of their argument. "But you get *one* chance, Mr. Peterson. See, the universe has seen to it that Master Sìfāng here can't kill you. But that doesn't mean that he can't teleport you into the heart of a volcano. Where you would suffer for the rest of your natural life. Do you understand where I'm going with this, Mr. Peterson?"

Mike nodded, swallowing hard as he contemplated the idea of living the rest of his life boiling in melted lava. "Yes, sir. I understand."

"Then Master Sìfāng, you should go with him, along with you, Yoda. The Yīzhì may need extra muscle and medical help." Bruce nodded.

"Skye, you should go with them, too," Coulson ordered.

Skye's jaw hit the floor. "No!" she exclaimed. "Don't do this to me! This is the man that killed my mother, and now you're telling me I can't..."

"You're *walking* *wounded*, Skye," Coulson insisted. "Your injuries are a weakness that the Clairvoyant can use against us." His face softened as his next words poured out with overwhelming emotion. "You almost died in my arms once. I refuse to go through that again. Not when I can do something about it."

Coulson's sincere declaration melted Skye's heart. She wrapped her arms around her mentor and leaned into his embrace. The SHIELD agent took advantage of the opportunity. He turned to Fallon, who turned to Castle in a moment of unspoken communication.

When Skye disappeared from his arms, Coulson's expression hardened into pure determination and fury. He turned to Esposito. "Any traps above us? Any bombs that could send this place crashing down on our heads?"

"Not anymore," Esposito replied.

"What about below us?"

Ryan shook his head. "He never expected any of his enemies to get down this far."

"Can young Ms. Crusher here get us to him?" When Alexis and Ryan nodded, Coulson eyes flashed with orange light as he ordered them, "Then get us there. I've had it up to here with this guy. It's past time we end this."

The rest of the group disappeared.

#

**A/N:** I know I haven't really begged for comments since we started this story, but *no* comments on Chapter 17? I'm going to try not to take that personally...*sniff*


	19. Chapter 19

The room the group appeared in was large and dark. All that most of them could see was a large white curtain spot-lit at the opposite end of the room...and the lone grey-haired gentleman standing still in front of it.

Beckett's eyes adjusted to the lack of light quickly. _The rest of this room is empty,_ she told the group through the mind-link...

"I can assure you," the man called out from across the room, "there are no surprises waiting in the shadows to 'jump out and grab you'. After all, why should I waste my time on such a futile endeavor, considering this most talented company..."

Ryan and Beckett turned to each other in shock. _Did he just hear us?_ asked Ryan.

The gentleman continued to talk, seemingly undeterred by the mental conversation going on at the other end of the room or by the continuing approach of his adversaries. "Allow me to bid a good evening to you and your friends, Agent Coulson. I must say, I am humbled that you thought so highly of me as to bring the beings that you have brought with you to 'take me down', as it were..."

Coulson had to force himself to play it cool and match his opponent's cavalier attitude. "Simon Quinn, I presume?"

Quinn bowed deeply. "I see my reputation has preceded me."

"It has," Coulson replied casually. "You've made quite a name for yourself."

Quinn mouthed a silent "oh". "That whole 'Clairvoyant' business? I must say, I do find it quite amusing," he said with a loud, contrived chuckle. "It does bring a certain...mystique. Much like the reputations of the group surrounding *you*. I am curious as to why you didn't bring your usual cadre of SHIELD agents to 'have your six', as the expression goes. Perhaps it is because even you realized that those fools were not up to the task..."

The curtain that Quinn was standing in front of dropped, and Coulson's face paled at the sight before him. Fallon noticed the change in Coulson's expression immediately. _Your men?_

Coulson nodded. _The man and woman on the left. The other two were working with them, holding Quinn's son as a prisoner while Skye and I trained with you guys. Are they alive?_

Beckett nodded. _I can't tell how conscious they are, though._

"Do you like it?" Quinn asked, beaming with a almost fatherly pride. "It might not be my greatest creation, but it is one I am *particularly* proud of." He watched the eyes of his opponents dart around the room and forced himself to suppress a girlish giggle. "Allow me to walk you through the finer points of this prison, Agent Coulson," he explained, "since your friends seem to be having such trouble figuring it out for themselves. Obviously, you and your friends have worked out that the platform underneath my guests here is wired to enough explosives to blow this compound and bury all of us far more than six feet under."

"Obviously," Coulson agreed.

"But the trick..." Quinn countered, "ah, the beautiful trick to this device is in its trigger mechanisms."

Ryan's attention focused entirely on Quinn's last word. "There is more than one?"

"Redundancy, my boy," Quinn teased, "redundancy! First, we have my pièce de résistance. The hooks that are holding my guests above the platform are perfectly balanced and calibrated to the position in which they currently reside. If that position is changed in any way, the bomb will detonate."

"What's the second trigger?" asked Coulson.

Quinn smiled even wider as he held up a small remote control device. "A dead man's switch. If pressure is released from this trigger before I deactivate the device, the bomb will explode." When Steve took a step forward, Quinn added, "and just in case your eager friend here believes that he can somehow overpower me and take the remote without releasing the pressure on the trigger - even for a split second - you might also want to take note that the trigger has a fingerprint identification mechanism. If it's not *my* finger on the trigger, the bomb will detonate then, as well."

_Which means we can't take the trigger mechanism from him,_ Ryan projected to the group. _Not even using magic. Gotta hand it to him - he's definitely thorough._

"What do you want, Quinn?" Coulson demanded, letting his rapidly fraying patience start to show. "Your son?"

Quinn's smile faded. "That boy has outlived his usefulness to me. No, you can keep *him*. No...no, there are others I want far more than I want him. Others who are far more valuable in the grand scheme of things."

"And who would that be?" asked Esposito. "Kim Kardashian, maybe?"

"You," Quinn demanded, ignoring Esposito in favor of never taking his eyes off of Coulson. "You and the girl. In exchange, your friends will be able to walk away from here unharmed."

Coulson couldn't resist the opportunity. "So you *do* want Kim Kardashian, then? It's going to take a while to get her here from California..."

"Don't toy with me, Coulson," Quinn spat out angrily. "You know exactly which girl I am looking for."

Coulson's face became a grim-set mask of determination. "You can't have her. Take me if you want, but she's not here."

"Your friends can bring her here in the blink of an eye," Quinn drolled. "That is hardly a good excuse in this company." An idea seemed to spark in Quinn's mind, and he smiled arrogantly at his own thoughts. "I'll tell you what, Agent Coulson. Suppose...suppose we do this the old fashioned way? Two suitors fighting for the hand of the fair maiden. One on one, mano a mano. Winner gets the loser as their prisoner and the Lady Skye as their 'prize'." His expression darkened, though, as he made one last demand. "Your *friends* are not allowed to interfere in any way or I will detonate the bomb immediately. Well? Are we in agreement?"

The group rapidly evaluated their options. _I can shock him,_ Alexis suggested. _Try to fry the trigger mechanism..._

_We don't know if that will just cause the device to detonate outright, _Coulson countered. _Too risky._

_Do we have any other options? _asked Fallon.

Coulson nodded. _Agree to his demands._

Ryan and Esposito eyed Coulson warily. _There's no way that this guy would let us go that easily, _Esposito insisted. _He's got to have some other trick up his sleeve._

_I'm inclined to believe that myself, _Coulson declared.

_What can we do to help?_ asked Fallon.

_Disconnect me,_ Coulson replied. _I can't concentrate with you in my head. And if you guys can come up with some other way to get all of you out of here, don't worry about me. Just do it._

The group reluctantly nodded as Coulson took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "I agree to your terms, Quinn," he declared.

Quinn's smile grew. "In that case..." he teased, "I should probably tell you that your friends were right. I do have a few tricks up my...sleeve." His free arm rose with a downturned fist. A metal sleeve wrapped around his forearm, and the same type of rocket projectiles that Peterson had launched were flying at Coulson's head a second time.

Coulson dove behind a cement pillar, which caught the impact of the explosives and blew into a thousand pieces. "Nice trick," Coulson called out. "A little repetitive, though."

Quinn laughed loudly. "Did you actually think that I would give my lab rats all of the power and not take any for myself, Agent Coulson? I am hardly that generous..."

Coulson dove behind a second pillar as two more rockets flew at his head. The explosion caused the ceiling to creak loudly in Beckett's ears even as the concrete flew. _Those are support pillars,_ she warned the rest of the group. _He hits too many more and the building will collapse on us anyway._

Coulson never heard Beckett; he was too focused on fighting for his life. _Okay, 'Raja', he thought,_ off-handedly remembering the nickname that Esposito had given the tiger spirit, _I'm out of ideas and out of gas; if you can take over and win this for me..._His mind stopped all rational and logical thought, switching to a beastly level of pure instinct like nothing he had ever experience before. Coulson dodged two more rockets, rolling forward and sprinting toward Quinn at super-human speed. The two men crashed violently into a third concrete support pillar...

#

The sound of the explosion was still ringing in Coulson's ears when he was dumped unceremoniously on the front lawn of Quinn's compound. He rolled through the impact and jumped up, his mind only briefly registering the impossible change in location as his spirit-fueled instincts checked for nearby enemies. Only once the tiger was satisfied that he was safe did Coulson's mind return to him. He immediately noted, gratefully, that May, Ward, Triplett and Garrett were surrounding him, still bound, gagged and lying on the ground...

But where were the Guardians?


	20. Chapter 20

It had become one of the biggest SHIELD recovery efforts since the aftermath of the Battle of New York. Coulson stared down into the gaping hole that had once been the massive headquarters of Centipede as oversized cranes grabbed huge piles of wreckage and brought it to ground level, where half a dozen techs would converge on each pile, carefully sorting through that pile looking for one thing: human remains. Specifically, the remains of one man.

A junior agent approached him nervously. "The list of the casualties identified so far, as you requested, sir."

Coulson started flipping through the pages. "Have the DNA tests confirmed Quinn's remains?"

"Not yet, sir," the agent replied.

Coulson kept flipping through the pages, studying them carefully. "Let me know as soon as Quinn's remains are ident..." his voice trailed off as he found the names he had hoped and prayed he wouldn't see on the list he was holding.

The junior agent saw the pained look on his superior's face and found himself unsure of how to proceed. "Sir?"

Coulson pulled himself together quickly, but briefly. "Please let me know when Quinn's remains are identified," he ordered, the grief in his voice becoming more and more obvious.

The junior agent found himself grateful to be leaving rather than trying to find something comforting to say. "Yes...yes, sir."

Coulson ignored the younger agent's last remarks. He was far too busy staring at the last page of the casualty list. Specifically, the last group of names. His mind wandered to Richard Castle, the 'celebrity' best selling author...and one of the last remaining living Guardians. Castle's fiancée, daughter, and best friends were in the building when it exploded. _What am I going to tell him? *How* am I going to tell him?_ Coulson gasped as another face came to the forefront of his mind. Skye...she had just come into her powers, and the one living man who could truly be a mentor to her was now gone. _What am I going to tell *her*?_ Finally, Coulson sighed, resigned to just getting the terrible job over and done with. He then pulled out his cell phone.

#

Skye didn't know when she had felt so relieved. She sat beside Mike Peterson's 'hospital' bed, holding his hand and watching him while he slept. His hand felt soft and warm...gentle, like the man she knew Mike truly was. Skye just hoped that, when Mike finally woke up, he would be able to *be* that man once again.

A comforting hand came to rest on Skye's shoulder. "How are you doing?" Lanie asked Skye.

Skye looked up at Lanie with a gentle, reassuring smile. "How's *he* doing?" she countered, revealing the only thing she cared about at that moment.

"It was touch-and-go there for a bit," Lanie admitted. "First time I've ever had to perform healings during actual surgery. But I'm sure we got out all of the tech. *Especially* that chip in his brain." Lanie's face fell as she though about the one thing that she hadn't been able to do for Mike. "I'm sorry we weren't able to do anything about his leg."

Skye blew off Lanie's apology. "You did more for him than I could have thought possible. Thank. You." Lanie squeezed Skye's shoulder, then turned and left the room as Skye's cell phone rang. The name that came up on her screen sent a pang of worry through Skye's system. "Sir?" she asked, the concern evident in her voice. "What is it? Have you found Quinn's remains?"

"No," Coulson replied, his voice choking and thick with emotion. "No, we haven't identified his remains yet..."

The way her mentor's voice was breaking made Skye sit up in her chair. "Phil?" she asked, her own voice filled with deep urgency and concern. "What is it?"

"They...they identified the remains of six other people from where we had confronted Quinn," Coulson told her. "Including Agents Ryan and Beckett."

Skye turned her head to greet the person standing in the entrance to Mike's 'hospital' suite...and didn't know what to think. "Are you sure they didn't make a mistake?"

"There's no mistake," Coulson insisted. "DNA tests confirmed it...out of curiosity, why do you ask?"

Skye couldn't take her eyes off of the man standing in the doorframe. "Because Agent Ryan is staring right at me."

#

Coulson was furious. He was in a blinding, grief-filled rage that he was having trouble getting away from. They were all dead, or so he had thought. Their bodies had been crushed and burned in the explosion that destroyed Centipede and killed Simon Quinn. He had the DNA evidence to prove it.

And yet, here they all were. Fallon and his wife, Kate Beckett, Alexis Castle, Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan. All leaning against his beloved car. "Would someone please tell me what the *hell* is going on here?!" he exclaimed. "You're all supposed to be *dead*."

"So are you," Fallon argued.

"Yeah, but as far as I know SHIELD doesn't have another copy of my body lying around someplace. I have DNA evidence that proves all of you died in that explosion."

"You know that evidence will disappear by the morning, right?" asked Beckett.

Coulson was quickly adding frustration to his growing list of mixed emotions. "That's not the point! How the *hell* did you get out of there?"

"We didn't," Ryan replied. "Obviously."

Ryan's calm attitude about his death was getting on Coulson's last remaining nerve...until he remembered the orange 'spirit'. "You *are* all alive, right? Skye and I aren't just seeing your ghosts or something?"

Fallon chuckled, which seemed to help release some of the tension from the conversation. "Yeah, Phil, we're all alive."

Coulson's mind demanded tangible proof. He cross the field, stood in front of his spirit-brother, and grabbed his shoulders. When Coulson felt muscle, bone and warmth beneath his touch, relief flooded his emotions. The two men embraced...and Phil came out of the hug much more relaxed, but no less curious. "Okay. I'm hoping you guys are at least here to explain to me what happened back there?"

Fallon looked to the others to see if anyone else wanted to explain, then, seeing no takers, took on the job himself. "None of us really understand the 'how' of what happened back there, to be honest. All we know is that if we don't want to die at the moment of our 'deaths'...we don't."

Coulson looked like the wind had gotten knocked out of him. "So you guys are *immortal*!?" he exclaimed. His mind flashed on Skye's unconscious form lying next to Beckett's. "So did Skye's father choose to die? Is this some sort of Guardian thing?" He shook his head, answering his own question when he remembered who he was talking to. "It can't be, Mark, you and Kat aren't Guardians..." Coulson swallowed hard as his train of thought led him to the one thing he and Fallon *did* have in common. The one thing they *all* had in common. "Is this...is this a tiger spirit thing? Am I immortal, now, too?"

Fallon shook his head. "No, this has nothing to do with the tiger spirit. We were given this blessing as an apology of sorts from the Mayan creator god for having to deal with his children."

"The battle where you also got the tiger spirit?" Coulson asked, his mind slowly connecting the dots.

Fallon nodded...and stuck a hand in his pocket. "As to whether or not you're going to be immortal...that's up to you."

Coulson's breath caught in his throat. "What?"

Fallon pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing a small, ugly looking antique chain dangling from a chain. "After another one of our missions, the Guardians were given a small collection of these coins. Whoever has this coin on them when they die...won't."

"Effectively making them immortal..." Coulson choked out in a gasp.

Fallon nodded again. "Castle created the chain to be indestructible, so it can't break in the course of combat. And after we discussed your...unique situation, we all agreed that it didn't seem fair that you were killed *and* resurrected against your will. We all think that the next time you face death, the choice to take his offer should be yours. If you would like it to be."

Coulson took the coin in his hands, flipping it back and forth to study the medallion from all sides. "The same way you guys have that choice..." he mused. When his hands started to tremble, Coulson decided it was better to not drop something so valuable, so he slipped the chain over his head and dropped the medallion down his shirt, hiding it from view as the cold metal slowly started to warm against his chest. "Who else has a medallion like this?"

"Just my wife," Ryan replied. "No one else that we know of."

Coulson thought about the powerful and unique gift he had just been given. To live as long as he chose. To be a witness and participant in so much of history...his thoughts wandered to Captain America. A man who had out-lived all of his friends and family, and yet was starting to become such a vital part of history for a second time.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, a flash of red hair reminded Coulson that he was in the company of Steve Rogers' girlfriend. His *immortal* girlfriend. "Does Cap know about all this?"

Alexis nodded. "I've offered him one of the coins, but so far he's refused to take it. Something about how Erskine's formula might make it unnecessary, so it should be available for someone else to have. I keep telling him he should have one just in case, but..."

The growing frustration on Alexis' face made it clear that this had to be something of a long-standing argument between the couple. "He's got a different perspective on all of this than we do," Coulson reassured Alexis. "I'm sure he'll come around."

The mention of 'perspective' wiped the smile from Fallon's face. "Phil...there's only a small handful of people who even *know* about this. I'm sure you of all people know what SHIELD would want to do if they knew about our immortality. Or about the coin you now wear."

Coulson winced as his memories flew back to the agonizing procedure that had been used to resurrect him. "I understand," he nodded grimly. "No one will ever hear about this from me." The entire group seemed to relax into full relief until Coulson's cell phone started to buzz in his pocket. The name on the front of the phone reminded Coulson that he couldn't stay in this conversation forever. "It's the team at Pioneer. They've positively identified Quinn's remains and they're wondering where I am."

The group stepped back as Coulson opened the door to the car they had all been sitting on. "I can drop you at the site if you want," Alexis suggested.

"Believe it or not, a flying car would be less conspicuous," Coulson declared with a chuckle. "But if you could send Skye to the dig site that would be one less stop I'd have to make on the way."

The group shared in the chuckle, enjoying the absurdity of the life they all led. Fallon then took the opportunity to embrace Coulson a second time. "Don't be a stranger, Phil. You have family here now, after all."

Coulson smiled, grateful that Fallon apparently shared in the emotions he was feeling about the extraordinary group he had fought alongside. "Don't worry, Mark," he teased, "after all, it just might take me a couple of centuries around you guys to figure out how not to get beaten up by a girl."

Katya blushed before following up her husband's embrace of the SHIELD agent with a hug of her own. "Perhaps I will not be so easy on you next time," she teased.

"Oh, great!" Coulson exclaimed with another chuckle. "That is *not* what I needed to hear...maybe it will be a while before I make it back to the warehouse..."

Bringing the conversation back to the warehouse reminded Fallon of something. "Hey, we thought of a codename for you," he told Coulson as he closed the door of the older man's car behind him.

"What?" asked Phil.

"Cerberus," Katya replied.

"The three-headed guard dog..." Coulson mused. "I'm going try not to take that too personally..."

Katya was unfazed. "The heads are supposed to represent the past, present and the future. And with the uniqueness of your past, your present, and now your future..."

Coulson immediately understood the analogy. "Cerberus it is, then," he agreed with a smile. Coulson shook his head, though, and started chuckling as another thought about his codename came to mind.

Fallon seemed curious as to what was going though the mind of his spirit-brother. "What is it, Phil?"

"Skye," Coulson replied as he started up the car's powerful engines. His voice grew louder to call out one last comment before he flew away. "It looks like I'm never going to get her to stop calling me AC..."


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: **Last chapter for this one! For those of you who have taken this ride with me, I hope you've enjoyed it. I might do a sequel if there's enough interest (need a cheap excuse to push me to watch SHIELD even though I don't like the current story arc). So let me know in your comments!

* * *

Mike Peterson was hating his life at the moment.

Not the company, of course. Skye was probably the best friend he's ever had: gentle and forgiving, with an amazing sense of humor and a passion for the truth like no one else he had ever met. And she was great with Oz. "Skye?" he asked quietly.

"Hmmm?" asked Skye, turning her attention back to her companion after being lost in her own thoughts.

"Why did we never get together?"

That was probably the last question Skye had been expecting. "What?!"

"You heard me," Mike argued, not backing down. "You're a beautiful, intelligent, confident woman. And you've been far better to me than I ever deserved. So why did this..." he waved his hand back and forth between them to signify which 'us' he ws talking about, "never happen?"

Skye leaned back against the headrest of the cab's back seat and sighed, not wanting to think about such things. The answer, though, came to her without warning. "Bad timing," she finally replied.

"Yeah," Mike agreed, chuckling bitterly. He twisted his cane idly in his hands as he thought about the awful truth in Skye's words. "Of course, my little stint as the Terminator didn't exactly help our relationship any."

"No," Skye sighed, hating her crystal-clear mental picture of Mike's previous cybernetically-enhanced life. "No, it definitely didn't."

"You've done pretty well for yourself, though...Shadow."

Skye smiled at the mention of her newly-minted 'Network' codename. "Yeah, well, that wasn't me."

Mike frowned, confused. "It wasn't?"

"No," Skye replied wistfully. "No...I think that was probably my father looking out for me."

Skye's reply did nothing to alleviate Mike's confusion. "I didn't know you were a religious person, Skye?"

The cab pulled into the airport's departure alley, giving Skye the perfect excuse to dodge the question as they got out of the cab and the driver unloaded a medium-sized black suitcase. Mike watched as Skye paid the cab driver and let the man drive off, growing more and more despondent by the minute. "What am I supposed to do, Skye? With my life?"

"Get on with your life, Mike," Skye replied. "Go back to your son."

"But *how*?" Mike demanded, his tone growing angrier by the minute. "I can't go back to SHIELD with this leg, and I'm not strong enough on my own to make a damn bit of difference to anyone about anything. What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Skye's response was so quiet that, in the chaos of the crowded airport that surrounded them, Mike had to strain to hear it. "Close your eyes, Mike," she whispered.

"What?" asked Mike, confused.

"Close your eyes," Skye repeated, giving the command loud enough for Mike to hear it. Tamping down his frustration for the moment, Mike closed his eyes. Skye drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and grabbed Mike's hands to strengthen the connection. _Your name is Mike Peterson, _Skye projected into Mike's mind. _Your son Oz loves and misses you very, very much. You lost your leg in a construction accident but you're not going to get that stop you. You're going to fly home to him and do everything you can to give him the best life you can possibly give him because you're his Daddy and you love him more than life itself. And anything else you think you saw or heard over the past two years is nothing more than bad dreams and scary stories you told Oz to tease him. Nod your head if you understand everything I just told you._

Mike nodded.

Skye broke the connection with Mike and the world returned to normal. She took one more moment to re-focus her thoughts as Mike broke away from the trance and opened his eyes. Skye pulled a sleeve full of paperwork out of the inside pocket of her jacket as Mike shook off the last of his disorientation. "All right, Mr. Peterson," she declared, fighting with all her might to keep her raging emotions under control, "I have your ticket and boarding pass right here, along with the lease to your new apartment and your offer letter for your new position as a Junior Vice President in Stark Enterprises."

"Thanks," said Mike, still slightly disoriented, "Miss, uh, Miss..."

"Lane?" Skye said, feigning insult. "Margo Lane?" She forced her voice to take on a tone of exaggerated teasing. "You're not one of those guys who has to get on a plane hammered because they're scared of flying, are ya? Because, you know, the TSA doesn't take too kindly to that anymore. At least, not until you get past security..."

Mike shook his head, trying to use the motion to shake the disorientation from his mind and focus on the present. "Of course, of course," he said rotely. "Thank you for all of your help, Ms. Lane."

Skye fought with every bit of emotional control she had to keep from crying. Even so, it did little to keep her voice from choking up. "Good luck to you, Mr. Peterson," she finally said. "I know you and Oz will do really well in Los Angeles."

Mike flipped through the papers in his hands as if they held the answers to the questions that were starting to float through his mind. "I guess it's always good to get a fresh start, right?" he asked nervously.

The smile on Skye's face was warm and sincere. "Absolutely." Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a monitor that showed the time. "Wow," she exclaimed. "You better hurry up, you don't want to miss your plane!" Skye helped Mike get past the front doors of the terminal, then turned and walked away from the airport.

A red convertible pulled up next to Skye and she got into the passenger side. "You did the right thing," Coulson told her. "He wouldn't have been able to live with the memories of what had happened to him. Not for long, anyway. Better to have a clean slate."

"Was it better for you?" asked Skye.

Coulson found he didn't have an answer for that.

#

The bus was in the air, on its way to deliver Garrett and his team back to the hub. Coulson sipped on his coffee and leaned back in the comfortable 'executive'-style chair in his office. A rumbling purr echoed in the back of his mind, and he smiled, thinking about how much his life had changed in just two short days.

One of those changes casually flopped down in the chair on the opposite side of his desk and sighed wearily. "It's done," she declared. "all evidence has been wiped of anything related to our 'adventures'. Everything will all line up with the official reports."

"Thank you," said Coulson. His expression grew more concerned as he studied her. "Skye, are you okay?"

Skye tried to blow off her boss' concerns. "I'm fine," she insisted.

Coulson wasn't buying it. "You know you can say anything to me, right? I'm not affected by..."

"I know, I know," said Skye, cutting off Coulson's comments. "And I volunteered to do this, remember? The less people who know about us, the safer we are."

Coulson leaned forward across the desk. "You know I will never order you to do...what you do, right? I want your conscience to always be clear when it comes to this. No regrets."

"I thought that was what SHIELD did," Skye countered, clearly sulking. "Take whatever they could find and use it to their advantage..."

"It may be what SHIELD does, sometimes," Coulson agreed. "But it's not what *I* do."

Skye eyed her boss warily. "You're sure you're not protecting me because of..."

"I'm protecting you because I believe you're *worth* protecting, Skye," Coulson insisted. "No more, no less. Skye, you're a genuinely *good* person. That's hard enough to find in the 'real world', let alone in this business. You need to do everything you can to hold onto that. Especially under the circumstances."

"But I'm just doing the same thing that SHIELD did to you, aren't I? Maybe with a little less pain in the process, but..."

Coulson had to fight the urge to wrap his fingers around the medallion under his shirt as his mind wandered to the physical and emotional weight of the gifts *he* now carried. "Skye, if I hadn't gone through that process I wouldn't be where I am now. I don't regret any of it. I don't want you to, either."

Skye thought over everything that had happened to *her* in the previous two days. "No..." she finally relented with a wistful smile. "No, I don't regret it, either. I can't. But..."

"But what?" asked Coulson.

Skye immediately stopped fidgeting and re-focused, knowing how important her next words might be to the both of them. "I'm just wondering if SHIELD is the best place for us to be. Under the circumstances."

Coulson nodded. "That's fair. Our 'mutual friends' did say we had a home with them if we wanted it. We could jump ship. Start over again in New York with them, like Mike Peterson is doing in LA."

Skye sensed there was more to Coulson's argument. "But..."

"What are the odds that you and I would just drop off SHIELD's radar if we left?"

Skye sighed, knowing that Coulson had a point. "I suppose we can do more to help ourselves from the inside than from the outside," she conceded. "So I guess we just carry on like we did before this? Like everything is 'normal'?"

Coulson shook his head and pulled a small box out of his desk drawer. "This is for you...if you still want to take it."

Curious as to what kind of a gift Coulson would be giving her after everything they had gone through together, Skye opened the box...to discover a shiny, brand-new SHIELD badge. "What is this?" she asked.

"Your level 1 credentials," Coulson replied. "Your appointment was already in the works before your shooting, but it didn't get finalized until this morning. You earned this long before any of 'this' happened. You deserve it. And, especially now, I think it's the best way to protect you."

"I don't follow," Skye declared.

"We hide you in plain sight," Coulson explained. "Continue to show 'the powers that be' what an asset you are to them. That way, if things go south..."

Skye was beginning to understand her boss' logic. "They'll be less likely to permanently stick me in a lab somewhere." Coulson nodded. Skye ran her fingers over the raised lettering on the badge, carefully considering her options before closing the case and sticking the badge in her pocket. "If this is what you think is best, then that's what we'll do. But don't forget I'm doing this for *you*, not for them. After all, someone's got to have your back in here...AC."

Coulson smiled at the teasing 'casual' moniker. "That goes double for you, kid. We're family now. Families protect each other."

Family. For so much of her life, Skye had thought that wasn't a word that applied to her. And now, for the first time in her life, Skye knew that the term fit. "Family, huh?" she asked, her expression brightening to a mischevious smile. "Does that make you my...godfather now?"

"I hope not!" Coulson joked with a chuckle. "Could you imagine me with those cotton balls in my mouth..."

"Oh, I don't know," Skye teased. "I think you could do a great Brando..."


End file.
